Posted on 08/07/2005 5:39:34 AM PDT by goldstategop
The other day an official with a British teachers' union proposed that the concept of "failing" exams should be abolished. Instead of being given a "failing" grade, she said, the pupil would instead be given a "deferred success."
Oh, sure, you can scoff. But evidently the system's already being test-piloted in Howard Dean's Democratic Party. That's why the Dems' Congressional Campaign Committee hailed their electoral failure in last week's Ohio special election as a triumphant "deferred success." As their press release put it:
"In nearly the biggest political upset in recent history, Democrat Paul Hackett came within just a few thousand votes of defeating Republican Jean Schmidt in Ohio's Second Congressional District."
Yes, indeed. It was "nearly the biggest political upset in recent history," which is another way of saying it was actually the smallest political non-upset in recent history. Hackett was like a fast-forward rerun of the Kerry campaign. He was a veteran of the Iraq war, but he was anti-war, but he made solemn dignified patriotic commercials featuring respectful footage of President Bush and artfully neglecting to mention the candidate was a Democrat, but in livelier campaign venues he dismissed Bush as a "sonofabitch" and a "chicken hawk" who was "un-American" for questioning his patriotism.
And as usual this nearly winning strategy lost yet again -- this time to a weak Republican candidate with a lot of problematic baggage. Insofar as I understand it, the official Democratic narrative is that Bush is a moron who's nevertheless managed to steal two elections. Big deal. Up against this crowd, that's looking like petty larceny. After the Ohio vote, Dem pollster Stan Greenberg declared that "one of the biggest doubts about Democrats is that they don't stand for anything." That might have passed muster two years ago. Alas, the party's real problem is that increasingly there's no doubt whatsoever about it.
Fortunately, the Dems have found a new line of attack to counter the evil election-stealing moron. A few days ago, the Democratic National Committee put out a press release attacking Bush for being physically fit. It seems his physical fitness comes at the expense of the nation's lardbutt youth. Or as the DNC put it:
"While President Bush has made physical fitness a personal priority, his cuts to education funding have forced schools to roll back physical education classes and his administration's efforts to undermine Title IX sports programs have threatened thousands of women's college sports programs."
Wow. I noticed my gal had put on a few pounds but I had no idea it was Bush's fault. That sonofabitch chicken hawk. Just for the record, "his cuts to education funding" are cuts only in the sense that Hackett's performance in the Ohio election was a tremendous victory: that's to say, Bush's "cuts to education funding" are in fact an increase of roughly 50 percent in federal education funding.
Some of us wish he had cut education funding. By any rational measure, a good third of public school expenditures are completely wasted. But instead it's skyrocketed. And the idea that Bush is heartlessly pursuing an elite leisure activity denied to millions of American schoolchildren takes a bit of swallowing given that his preferred fitness activity is running. "Running" requires two things: you and ground. Short of buying every schoolkid some John Kerry thousand-dollar electric-yellow buttock-hugging lycra singlet, it's hard to see what there is about "running" that requires increasing federal funding.
Perhaps America could have a Running Czar or a National Commission on Running that would report back on the need for a Cabinet-level Runner-General. Perhaps Title IX needs to be expanded to provide a federal sneaker subsidy: a woman's right to shoes.
But I don't think so. Sitting behind yet another Vermont granolamobile bearing the bumper sticker "Bush Scares Me," I found myself thinking that perhaps the easiest way to reduce childhood obesity in American families might just to be to shout out, "Look! There's big scary Bush! Run! Run for your lives! No, wait, there's John Bolton, too! Better cut through the park before he puts his hands on his hips in an aggressive manner!" Indeed, when yesterday's coming man John Edwards dusts off his "Two Americas" stump speech -- the one with the heartwarming Dickensian vignette about the shivering girl whose parents can't afford to buy her a winter coat ($9.99 brand new from Wal-Mart) -- he might want to add a section about how an easy way for shivering coatless girls to keep warm is to run around the block a couple of times.
Speaking of shivering coatless girls in Bush's America, spare a thought for the underprivileged urchins of the Bronx. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, a nonprofit social-services organization in New York, receives millions of dollars in government funds to give disadvantaged youth in poor neighborhoods a leg up the ladder of life. But mysteriously much of the money wound up being diverted to the coffers of Air America, the liberal talk-radio network whose ratings are yet another example of "deferred success." The needs of disadvantaged Al Franken and his pals apparently outweigh those of Bronx welfare recipients. Perhaps Janeane Garofalo is the coatless girl John Edwards was talking about all those months. Air America looks like the broadcast version of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, whereby money earmarked to save starving moppets somehow winds up in the bank accounts of bloated self-described do-gooders with political connections.
The DNC's Bush-is-the-reason-your-kid-is-fat press release is a convenient precis of the party's problem: While he runs rings around them, the Dems lounge about getting flabbier by the week and telling themselves it's all his fault they can barely move except to complain about Bush's Supreme Court nominee's kid being overly cute. What's the betting for 2006? The Dems will have a few more "nearly the biggest political upsets," while the Republicans will have the actual political upsets -- a couple more Senate seats? Including Robert C. Byrd's venerable perch in West Virginia?
Republicans may see the increasingly arthritic, corpulent, wheezing, flatulent Democratic Party as a boon for them, but I don't. Two-party systems need two parties, not just for the health of the loser but for that of the winner, too. Intellectually, philosophically, legislatively, it's hard to maintain the discipline to keep yourself in shape when the other guy just lies around the house all day.
" Mommy, why can't I go to camp this summer?"
I'm sorry, sweetheart. Yono Ono and Tim Robbins drank your summer camp money:
March 2004:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Inside Air America's Troubles: Optimism and Shaky Finances
The Wall Street Journal ^ | June 21, 2004 | JULIA ANGWIN and SARAH MCBRIDE
Posted on 06/21/2004 3:36:36 AM PDT by visagoth
On March 30, the night before Air America went on the air, the liberal radio network threw itself a $70,000 party at Manhattan's hip Maritime Hotel. More than 1,000 guests, including Yoko Ono and Tim Robbins, drank red, white and blue vodka cocktails as they toasted the network's bid to challenge the dominance of conservative talk radio.
Even if I didn't agree with Steyn I'd read him just to pick up on the style.
I'm at a loss to find anybody on the left about whom I can say the same. Who on their side produces anything worth reading for its own sake? Did all of their writing talent die with Mike Royko?
True, but when it's the best you can do, it kind of sucks as a strategy.
The other part of that strategy is to wait for the adults in the room to stumble unexpectedly, or allow their attention to be diverted, even momentarily.
Keep in mind the Perot factor in 1992, which permitted the elevation of one of the least competent persons EVER to the Oval Office. Worse, he was not booted from that office a mere four years later, because the Republicans were rather too "gentlemanly" to use real opposition research quickly enough.
Steyn is absolutley correct about this. It bothers me greatly that there is no 2nd party system any more.
Excellent analogy.
More belly laughs than from SNL! I only regret Mark Steyn can't be appointed to our Supreme Court -- I can only imagine his dissents!
Uhh-- I think I'm in love with David Brooks AND Mark Steyn -- does this make me a liberal?
Whatever happened to our old buddy Baghdad Bob? Someone could start an entire advertising agency if they could sign up this guy.
The other day an official with a British teachers' union proposed that the concept of "failing" exams should be abolished. Instead of being given a "failing" grade, she said, the pupil would instead be given a "deferred success."
Mark, Mark, adding British perspectives will only aggravate American leftists' anguish on you. They aren't educated enough to know or even care about what their friends abroad are saying when such issues have nothing to do with the US. Who says the US conservatives are the ignorant lot?
Which becomes a bigger problem when you also control the Mainstream Media. Giving a two-year old a megaphone doesn't improve the argument's logic -- it only makes the shrillness louder and more apparent.
Hilarious!!
The more I think about it, the more it seems the only intelligent leftists left all reside in Britain or some isolated parts of continental Europe. I would rather fisk an article from the al-Guardian rather than spending time correct a piece of garbage from the San Francisco Chronicles.
ROTFLMAO I can' breathe.
An apt observation. More and more often, we're dealing with a poor grade of leftist here in the US. Must be the inbreeding...
I think democrats are already at the "hitler in the bunker mode"
They are marrying their own eva braun via homosexual marriage.
They are summoning nonexistent reinforcemetns via Err America and the AlgoreTV.
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