[Responsibility2nd]

His father was Mark Van Doren, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, literary critic and professor of English at Columbia. His mother, Dorothy Van Doren, was a novelist and editor. And his uncle, Carl Van Doren, had been a professor of literature, a historian and a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. Charles himself had bachelor’s and master’s degrees, a $4,400-a-year position at Columbia and an honest look about him.

 

So he was an Educrat. Ahead of his time.

[morphing libertarian]

It was easy to believe in the days before the internet that with his background he knew just about anything.

The days when we turned on the TV and believed what we saw, except for my dad. After world war II he was skeptical of everything and was hardened by his experience into coal mines..