Reading is Fundamental

The gentlemen at Hugh Hewitt have, for some time now, been hammering the idea that serious candidates for President and even those running for Congress need to be reading. Specifically, they need to be learning as much as they can from as many sources as they can find about Islam, about Jihad, about Terror in general.

Hugh adds the exclamation point this morning:

...Team Giuliani, Team McCain, and Team Romney plus all the other teams would do well to distribute the six tomes with a note that there will be a test. The coming campaign will very much center on the war, and the challenge in all of its incredible complexity. Five of these books explains aspects of that challenge: Wright provides a genealogy of one-half of the enemy. Steyn tackles the demographics and the vast Stockholm syndrome suffocating the West. Kaplan charts the extraordinary accomplishments of the American military around the globe, and the historians Roberts and Ferguson place the current crisis in its historical context.

And Doris Kearns Goodwin's remarkable read tells us that America has survived much more difficult times, and the sort of leaders who allowed her to do so.

Would-be presidents and their advisors should arrive at the starting gate in January fully prepared to talk early, often and seriously about the war. It is not only the way to win, but the way to deserve to win.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste...