Americans would be wise to learn a second language

ATLANTA — ATLANTA - Perhaps you remember the dust-up several weeks ago when Sen. Barack Obama, speaking at a town hall meeting in suburban Atlanta, suggested that parents should urge their children to learn foreign languages. Xenophobic commentators and GOP activists immediately took to the stump to denounce Obama for elitism, insufficient nationalism and a tendency to coddle foreigners.

Now that the political drama has died down and the dumbest comments have faded away, it's time to re-examine Mr. Obama's premise: In a rapidly globalizing economy, those who are fluent in at least one foreign language will be best prepared to find good jobs. Who can argue with that?

Certainly not the anxious affluent, who push their children into the most selective kindergarten programs, the most exclusive elementary schools and the most demanding high schools - with college-prep academic camps stuffed in between, so they'll be chosen for the most competitive colleges. Those students will spend at least one college semester, perhaps more, studying abroad, where they will practice their French, Italian, Spanish, Russian or, increasingly, Mandarin.

They'll be in demand for the prestigious law firms, the Wall Street jobs, the tenure-track teaching posts. Those stuck with "English-only" skills will find themselves less valuable in a global marketplace.

There is a powerful strain of anti-intellectualism in American political and cultural life which, when joined with undercurrents of jingoism, heaps suspicion on those educated enough and cosmopolitan enough to speak foreign languages. Fluent in French, Sen. John Kerry was on the receiving end of that foolish claptrap during the 2004 presidential campaign. (Mr. Obama, who speaks only English, says he wishes he were fluent in another language.)

That Kerry-bashing lacked ideological consistency: Jeb Bush - who remains popular among ultra-conservative Republicans - majored in Latin American studies in college and is fluent in Spanish. A Texas bank sent him to Caracas, Venezuela, shortly after college, where he worked in international finance. (His brother, President Bush, attempts to speak Spanish but does so poorly.)