Friday, June 13, 2008

Daily Howler: Of Pundits and Teachers

Daily Howler: Quinn and Yglesias and Crowley and Giles spoke from a planet of chimps

On education policy: "...It’s the most familiar proposal in the annals of history: Hold the other guy accountable! In this case, the principle devolves to this: Blame the teachers well!

Blame the teachers (and the administrators) well! As we’ve explained in the past, it has been the foundational theory of upper-class “school reform” since we entered the Baltimore City Schools way back in 1969. From way-on-the-outside peering in, high-minded elites have always insisted that everything would turn out fine if those teachers would just start doing their jobs. At first, we were told the teachers weren’t doing their jobs because they were such slobbering racists. When these elites finally learned that many black kids were actually being taught by black teachers, we were then told they weren’t doing their jobs because they were so g*d-damned lazy. And basically, that’s the theory that obtains today among these lofty, high-minded reformers. We’ll just stamp our feet at the teachers, they say—we’ll just “insist” they “become more accountable!” Throw in high-minded statements about “standing up for the children” and you have a formula for more decades of fumbling improvement..."

Examples of poor punditry: "... The Clintons “weren't exactly refuting charges of Nixonian tactics there?” The Clintons weren’t quoted in the piece. In fact, here’s what Leibovich said about Hillary Clinton, based on things he says he was told by unnamed campaign officials: “Mrs. Clinton has a short list of people who disappointed her.” Wow! Her evil ways just never stop! But in the mind of a butt-kissing climber like Crowley, that sentence let him put “Enemies List” into a headline—a headline which said that Hillary Clinton had such a list—and it let him tut-tut-tut about what she “wasn’t exactly doing.” But then, many boot-licking boys like Crowley run to show that they will accept whatever narrative their clan may lay out for them. (Why on earth did Candidate Gore cite seven years as a journalist?) Yesterday, the term “Enemies List” had reached the top headline at The Huffington Post by noon. By the way: If you want to peruse the work of people who really can’t read a newspaper story, just scan the inaccurate, cosmically gullible statements by so many of Crowley’s commenters. Remember when we liberals used to claim that we were smarter than those dumb-*ss conservatives?..."

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