Say it isn't so!
Posted on 11/15/2004 7:32:20 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Three other cabinet members announced their departures yesterday, virtually ignored in the shadow of Colin Powell's resignation. Their accomplishments, or lack thereof, say a lot about the president's first term and the prospects for his second.
When George W. Bush called himself a "compassionate conservative," he invariably pointed to his No Child Left Behind reform plan. As secretary of education, Rod Paige argued valiantly for the premise behind the law: that poor minority children deserve the same skilled teachers and high-quality schools as their affluent counterparts. But beyond the words, Dr. Paige turned out to be politically tone-deaf and a disastrous manager. His failures were recently outlined in a scalding report from the Government Accountability Office. The report noted that the department had squandered the authority given to it under the law and had failed even to provide written state-specific instructions to local governments attempting to comply with the new rules.
Among the people most mentioned as a possible successor for Dr. Paige is Margaret Spellings, Mr. Bush's chief domestic policy adviser and a principal architect of No Child Left Behind. Her background would give her both credibility and closer ties with the White House than Dr. Paige enjoyed. But whoever takes the job will need to make wholesale changes in the top echelons of the Education Department, which has been busier currying favor with religious organizations and the school voucher forces than carrying out the central mission at hand. Unless the department changes course quickly, it will miss the opportunity to ensure that the states comply with the all-important requirement for every classroom to have a highly qualified teacher.
As agriculture secretary, Ann Veneman generally toed the administration's pro-industry line on issues like forest policy and food safety. But she provided one notably fresh initiative in 2001, when she endorsed a new farm policy that would have drastically trimmed old-fashioned subsidies in favor of freer markets and more generous land conservation programs - a form of aid that is particularly helpful to small farmers. Unfortunately, the White House failed to give her much support in the face of Congressional resistance. The result was a swollen farm bill that greatly increased conservation spending but kept most of the old subsidies intact.
Ms. Veneman also began well on the area of forest policy, endorsing a strategy to prevent forest fires that would have focused on overgrown forests near at-risk communities while leaving the more valuable old-growth trees in remote areas pretty much alone. Within a year, however, under pressure from the timber industry, the White House and Congress, she reversed course in favor of a strategy that encouraged more aggressive commercial logging with only a modest payoff in fire suppression.
The energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, arrived at his cabinet post with the dubious distinction of having introduced a bill, when he was a United States senator, to abolish the very department Mr. Bush asked him to run. With that beginning, it's not surprising that Mr. Abraham pursued a pro-industry strategy that did little to steer the country to an energy future that would be cleaner, more efficient and less oil-dependent. To his credit, he began several useful steps to collect and safeguard nuclear materials that the United States and Russia had scattered around the world for research reactors. We have little hope that Mr. Abraham's successor will do any better at encouraging energy conservation, but given the president's campaign speeches about the importance of curbing nuclear proliferation, we hope that the next secretary will follow up on his lead on that critical initiative.
The people at the Times think somebody still cares about their opinions. They have no credibility, no reliable sources within the Administration, and have been on the losing side of every major issue in the past forty years. Their circulation declines and ad revenues are down. Other than that, they're doing just fine.
Say it isn't so!
I don't remember reading in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution about the federal government's enumerated power to control education.
Oh ya, I forgot the Constitution doesn't mean what it says.
Who is that sexy little thing?
Let the legacy media whine about the Cabinet changes. I'd like to see a more conservative Cabinet and course set for the country's direction over the next four years. If it gets libs angrier at Bush, I will sleep better at night for a long time. :)
"Unless the department changes course quickly, it will miss the opportunity to ensure that the states comply with the all-important requirement for every classroom to have a highly qualified teacher."
How's that? Isn't the NEA ensuring that every teacher is highly qualified already? /sarcasm
She's the host of Trading Spaces, Paige Davis.
One particular gripe I want to register here is the insistance of the Legacy Media to refer to the President as "Mr." Bush. This subtle, yet juvenile disrespect is pathetic.
I see you know the Old Gray Hag quite well.
Rod Paige is a stand-up guy who is not afraid to fight for what he believes is right, and he's not afraid to speak his mind. I will miss him. And GOOD for him for his fight for vouchers.
Another cabinet member I will miss is Don Evans. He was always such a positive force; articulated the President's positions in such an optimistic manner, and has a beautiful smile and demeanor. It says a lot about the President that he can count such a man as his friend.
You like that pic, you should see her in action in NY at a fundraiser where she flipped a little more than just her keys...
The NY Post ran them, I think.
Hello there, onyx. Well, we could have said the same about almost any major big city paper. It's just that the Times is the Queen Bee. I am enjoying its slow, painful death immensely.
Yes, of course. The NEA is for the children. They say so all the time.
Somehow, I noted your glee!
I share it. :)
Yep. A lot of glee going around since November 2!! The first day of the rest of our lives, or something like that.
Where are you??????
We may be stuck with her ...... goodness knows I hope not.
Two utterly useless political hacks that I really hope get cashiered this time around are Minetta (Transportation - seeing to it that no pilot is allowed to take their fingernail file on board and that no Arab is ever offended) and Ridge (Homeland Crayolla Color-Code Panic Scale).
Minetta's infliction of the law of PC to our Nation's aviation industry has placed us all at far greated risk IMHO, and terrorists will surely exploit it, given time.
Home in Mississippi.
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