Isn't No Child Left Behind the status quo?

I'll admit I don't get the eager anticipation awaiting Obama's choice for Education Secretary (quick, name the current Education Secretary...sorry time's up), nor do I get the anti-union fetish the choice allows David Brooks and the Wash Post op-ed page to indulge in. Take the Wash Post op-ed (please) for example:

We trust that Mr. Obama was serious when he promised change and will select someone who -- instead of just tinkering with a tired, low-performing system -- will be bold in choosing new directions for American education.

The different education factions of the party -- those pushing for radical restructuring and those more wedded to the status quo -- were each convinced during the campaign that Mr. Obama shared their particular viewpoints. So it is not clear whether Mr. Obama is leaning toward the "disrupters," House education committee chairman George Miller's approving description of the reformers, or the "incrementalists" who are allied with teachers unions.

So the Post writers want Obama to pursue "new directions for American education", a path the editors see as "pushing for radical restructuring" in American schools, which, the editors claim, is the opposite path of those "wedded to the status quo".

But what is the status quo, exactly?

Ah:

The choice of Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond to head the education policy transition group, along with speculation that she is a candidate for secretary or deputy secretary, is not reassuring to those in the reform movement. Ms. Darling-Hammond has been more critical than supportive of the No Child Left Behind law, dislikes linking teacher pay to test scores and is no fan of Teach for America. It would be a mistake to retreat from the accountability that No Child Left Behind has brought in improving learning and narrowing the achievement gap for minority students. And the next secretary should encourage the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship typified by Teach for America's success in attracting top college graduates to inner-city schools. Indeed, Mr. Obama might want to look to this new generation of educators -- people such as his adviser Jonathan Schnur, chief executive of New Leaders for New Schools, or the Education Trust's Kati Haycock -- in assembling a team equipped to deal with the new realities of education. Nor should opposition from the forces of the status quo scare Mr. Obama away from considering someone such as New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who has helped improve the nation's largest school system.

Get that? Obama's education transition czar is bad, and anti-reform, say the editors, because she doesn't like No Child Left Behind (among other apparent transgressions). But isn't No Child Left Behind (NCLF for short) what amounts to the current regime of federal education policy, i.e. the status quo?

The Post writers conclude by piously hoping that someone who "is not afraid to break with orthodoxy" and who is "more concerned with results than ideology" is chosen for the all-important post of U.S. Education sec. But isn't an anti-union posture, a posture which has been the stance of most "reformers" for decades now, it's own form of orthodoxy and ideology?

Update: This is pretty funny, and a bit more informative.

That's Mighty White of Them

Responding to prez-elect Obama's nomination of New Mexico guv Bill Richardson to the rather insignificant post of Commerce Sec (can anyone name the current Sec, or the one before that?), a spokesman from God's Own Party can't pass up the opportunity--even amidst the Christmas Holiday season, a celebration of the time when, we're told, God's Own Son was birthed among us two centuries ago--to say something chirlish.

Stay classy, guys.

Catholic neocons in denial

Responding to Catholic neocon George Weigel's complaint about mid-western and northeastern Catholics not voting "correctly" in this year's election fellow conservative Ross Douthat says:


John McCain did not lose this election because the Catholic clergy failed to anathematize Barack Obama loudly enough, or because Pennsylvanians and Michiganders thought they were voting for Roosevelt or Truman. He lost it because his party flat-out misgoverned the country, in foreign and domestic policy alike, and because of late the culture war has mattered less to most Americans than the Iraq War and the economic meltdown. And pro-lifers who see the GOP as the only plausible vehicle for their goals have an obligation to look the party's failures squarely in the face and work to fix them, instead of just doubling down on the case for single-issue pro-life voting.


It's hard to imagine today's GOP, or its neocon enablers, facing the party's problems squarely, since neither have an interest in the basic duties of government. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin was only the most recent case in point. The administration's staffing of FEMA is another, highly representative example. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, obviously, another.

Lieberman and Hillary

While I wanted the Democrats to kick Lieberman out of his homeland security chair--for reasons relating to the potential malignant influence he would have on the Obama administration, not on the basis of "revenge"--Ezra Klein makes some good points about yesterday's vote:

Obama is counting votes, not prosecuting grudges. Lieberman's slingshot into the furthest reaches of the far right was always a sadly transparent reaction to his rejection by the left. Human beings do not enjoy criticism. They gravitate towards affirmation. If he can be flipped yet again, that's a far better outcome from the perspective of passing major pieces of legislation, even if it's not the most "just" outcome from a party perspective.

Regarding the potential for Hillary landing at State, Thomas Friedman provides some caution:

The important question, the answer of which is not at all clear to me, is about the only relationship that matters for a secretary of state — the kind of relationship he or she would have with the new president. My question: Is Obama considering Mrs. Clinton for this job in order to get her off his back or as a prelude to protecting her back?

(snip)

That backing is the most important requirement for a secretary of state to be effective. Frankly, Obama could appoint his dear mother-in-law as secretary of state, and if he let the world know she was his envoy, she would be more effective than any ex-ambassador who had no relationship with the president.

(snip)

Foreign leaders can spot daylight between a president and a secretary of state from 1,000 miles away. They know when they’re talking to the secretary of state alone and when they are talking through the secretary of state to the president. And when they think they are talking to the president, they sit up straight; and when they think they are talking only to the secretary of state, they slouch in their chairs. When they think they are talking to the president’s “special envoy,” they doze off in midconversation.

“It takes America’s friends and adversaries about five minutes to figure out who really speaks for the White House and who doesn’t,” wrote Aaron D. Miller, a former State Department Middle East adviser and the author of “The Much Too Promised Land.” “If a secretary of state falls into the latter category, he or she will have little chance of doing effective diplomacy on a big issue. More likely, they’ll be played like a finely tuned violin or simply taken for granted.”

(snip)

My question is whether a President Obama and a Secretary of State Clinton, given all that has gone down between them and their staffs, can have that kind of relationship, particularly with Mrs. Clinton always thinking four to eight years ahead, and the possibility that she may run again for the presidency. I just don’t know.

Every word that is said between them in public, and every leak, will be scrutinized for what it means politically and whether there is daylight. That is not a reason not to appoint Mrs. Clinton. But it is a reason for everyone around the president-elect to take a deep breath and ask whether they are prepared to have the kind of air-tight relationship with Mrs. Clinton that is required for effective diplomacy.

When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals.

This seems like a potentially critical issue to me. But as with Obama's intervention on behalf of Lieberman, I'm inclined to give Obama the benefit of the doubt.

SOS Hillary

There's a lot to like in having Hillary as Secretary of State.

But there are a couple of problems. One, it seems like an awful snub of Bill Richardson, who (1) came out for Obama late in the primaries only to feel the wrath of Clinton and (2) represents a demographic that also came out heavy for Obama in the general election and contributed significantly to his victory, and which, one might think, is deserving of a prominent spot in the administration. A snub of Richardson would come across as a snub to many of them as well.

There's also that little matter of policy. One of Obama's signature themes, for which both Hillary and McLame attacked him, was his negotiating stance, his willingness to meet with one and all foreign leaders, promising, at least potentially, a break with the foreign policy norms of presidents past, Republican and Democrat. Real change if you will. I've no doubt that if she accepts the appointment, Hillary would act in Obama's interests here. But at a minimum, it could pose some awkward questions at a confirmation hearing--if there is one.

No Way

So Joementum wants to keep his Committee chair in the Senate, after (a) not using it for the past two years and (b) shitting all over the Democratic party's 2008 candidate.

No way. No, no.

If Joe is so willing to bolt to a much weakened GOP minority if he doesn't get his way, what does that say about how much of a Democrat--independent or otherwise--he is?

The Ministry of Truthiness Strikes

Uh-oh

Someone from the McCain camp must have hard a pretty stern talk with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. He just went on Fox with a bracingly abject apology for saying that Sarah Palin wasn't qualified to be vice president. So abject in fact that I must say that it had something of the feel of one of the Maoist self-criticism sessions or perhaps one of the public apologies during the Moscow show trials.

For the original story, see here.

Voices in their heads

Michael Moore, this morning, on Democracy Now:

People on our side usually aren’t as driven to involve themselves in a political process that they view, somewhat cynically, as not having operated in the best interests of the people. And so, they’re not often as—often—not as much as the other side is motivated to go to the polls, whereas the other side, under, you know, strict orders from, they believe, the voice of God that’s in their head telling them that they must go to the polls and vote for these good people or remove the heathens that are in violation of whatever it is they’re listening to in their head. So, I’m telling you, I think that’s pretty powerful. They’ve been very successful at it. They’ve always been well funded. They’re very smart about it. They are committed. They are up at the crack of dawn, and they will be on Tuesday. Trust me. We have not lived under the Republicans for twenty of the last twenty-eight years by their side being a bunch of slackers. That’s not the case. So they will be out in full force. And I don’t think we need to wake up on Wednesday with that feeling that we all know too well, that—you know, “Woah, what happened? What happened?” I just—I think that’s happened one too many times.

Life and Times at Wingnut U

There are just so many levels of precious in this (front page) Washington Post article on Liberty University (the late Jerry Falwell's creation), but I'll just single out this julicious nugget of gobbledygook:

Metallo takes the class through Britain's government structure, at one point explaining how voting rights were gradually widened, and not always for good. "The expansion of the electoral franchise led to the growth of the welfare state," the professor says. "People are able to vote money out of your pocket and into their own."

Well, bless their Jesus-loving hearts. Too many people vote. Or vote the wrong way. Yes, by all means, let's roll back the clock on voting rights, maybe throw in a poll tax or two, just to make sure that if the gubmit is going to be working for anyone, it will continue to be rich, right-wing evangelicals and not for the unwashed masses.

"Miss America Conservatism"

Mark Schmitt:

This is the apotheosis of what I once called (long before the former Miss Wasilla joined the ticket), "Miss America Conservatism" in which conservatives express disdain for all of government except for their single “platform” issue on which they lavish money and attention (as Palin says, “it’s not all about money”) to show their human side. Yes, governor, it is all about money, and when your priorities are tax cuts, war and freezing spending, special needs children are not going to be a priority.

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Oliver Willis:


If Sen. Obama wins, and Democrats increase their majorities in the House and Senate, will conservatives/Republicans still incessantly try to lecture those of us on the left about what “real” and “patriotic” Americans believe? I honestly thought they would tamp it down a little bit after the “thumpin’” of 2006, but they still lecture us about everything under the sun. Would losses across the board really shut their pieholes?


No.


This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

UnRighteous Anger

Glad to see the angry, divisive and hate-filled beliefs and rantings of the rabid right wing are finally getting some exposure. Of a similar right-wing hate fest at the 1992 GOP convention, conservative George Will remarked that indecent exposure can be of the mind as well as the body. And so it is.

Then, as now, much of this anger and hate is fundamentally religious in nature, or at least, religious profession is a strong correlate of it. Among religious fundamentalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, hate, resentment and divisiveness are key features of doctrinal thought. Sure, religious leaders have tried at times to dress itself up in more palatable sounding garb, emphasizing God's Grace, or Love, or how God sets them Free. But at its core, religious fundamentalism is inherently exclusionary, divisive and eliminationist. As for the latter, consider the doctrine of Hell or any theory of the End Times. And as for God's Grace and Love, well, most of the time what fundamentalists really mean when they mention those words are God's Love and Grace towards themselves, not to those outside "the faith".

So the religio-political rantings and ramblings of some of Christianism's unfinest is pretty par for the course, and the kind of stuff many of them are used to reading in their church-sponsored texts or hearing from the pulpit. It's only natural that this kind of stuff will begin to form the basis of the congregant's political and social expressions.

Deep Thought

Watching President Logan the other day on an old episode of 24 made me wonder how much like the erratic, overly emotional and borderline out of control, Gregory Itzin character, a president John McCain would turn out to be.

Reality Check

I was listening to Democracy Now this morning, with host Amy Goodman interviewing progressive writer John Nichols on the state of the U.S. Senate races. Nichols described two Democratic opponents of Republican incumbents, Jeff Merkle in Oregon and Al Franken in Minnesota, as waging particularly progressive insurgencies, being against the war in Iraq, the FISA compromise, the Wall Street bailout, etc. Except that in the campaign ads being run by Merkle and Franken that Democracy Now selected for our edification, and which Nichols responded to, didn't mention any of those progressive issues. Instead, Merkle and Franken both played up the issue of--wait for it--middle class tax cuts. I know Obama has made this a staple of his message, too, so in this sense it's not surprising. But it's a little disconcerting to have supposedly progressive campaigns and candidates, when the environment for progressive change has probably never been greater, largely playing on the GOP's "tax cut" field.

Obama will still win

I'm going to go out on a limb here, even after watching the sad spectacle that is cable teevee "news" and state I still think Obama will win. I just think the zeitgeist, the public mood, has changed, that a majority of the public recognizes the sad state of affairs in the country, and accurately knows who is to blame. Meanwhile, while the media still laps up it up, the standard right-wing attacks don't pack the same sting as in other years. I also think Obama has ridden enough of a wave here of where expectations are of his winning, and in most election cycles, that's how these things tend to play out; the candidate who is seen as being ahead for much of the race, ends up winning. 1992 was like that. Same with 1996 and even 2000, where w lead throughout much of the race. Ditto 2004.

One other thing. I think the national polls are still the key. Obviously a 49%-49% race means it will come down to a few key states. But if the spread is even 51%-49%, the electoral college will mostly likely reflect that. At the same time, with O ahead by increasingly consistent and comfortable margins in states like Colorado, Virginia, and now even Missouri, I think there's still reason to feel good. Kerry was never in this good a position four years ago. I think the winds of change are still blowing.

Crazy World

Here we go again. Cable teevee "news" still thinks joe da plumber makes $250k and shouldn't be taxed. And my cable teevee "news" is still talking about how much "sharper" mclame was in the debate even though opinion polls indicated the public scored the last debate a landslide Obama win. Geeesh.

Deja vu all over again, again

Previous Bulworth post:

Bush 2003: Bring them on.

McLame 2008 (right before second debate): The gloves will come off tonight.

OK, whatever.

-----------------

Today:

"I'll crush Obama in debate", says Mclame, and

Mclame aide: "Turnaround" starts today.

I'm just getting all warm and tingly inside.

Neither will I

Steve Benen:

On Friday, Palin was found to have violated the public trust in an abuse of power scandal. On Saturday, it was on the front page of the major dailies. And on Sunday morning, NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," and CNN's "Late Edition" ignored the story altogether, despite lengthy discussions about recent political events, as if a major scandal involving a candidate for national office isn't particularly interesting. I'll simply never understand this.

Guess it's just our liberal media again.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Bush 2003: Bring them on.

McLame 2008: The gloves will come off tonight.

OK, whatever.

Dicky Morris

I got A Woman in Charge at some point towards the end of the primary season, read the first chapter or two and set it down, only to find myself picking it up again recently. When the book was released sometime last year I think, the perception was that it was critical of the junior senator from New York State. What I've read so far leads me to think it's a relatively straight-forward take of HRC, although Bernstein raises some points that had Clinton been nominated, certainly would have found their way into negative ads from Palin/McLame. It certainly is no hagiography, the type of which conservative sheep are used to reading of their illustrious leaders. But the book was causing me to regard HRC with a measure of grudging respect. Until I got to the part where--and I'm at the part of where she and Bill get together--where Bernstein finds a reason to quote Dicky Morris, the former but longtime consultant to the Clintons who now spends his days writing anti-liberal screeds for the neocon NY Post and being thrown the welcome mat on Teevee at Faux News. I have a hard time imagining how the Clintons took up with Morris, but Dicky's most recent prognosticating indicates he hasn't improved much.