i'm all for jokes. but jeez, making a comparison like this isn't really funny when you're the head of the education department:
Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige yesterday told the nation's governors that the largest teachers union in the United States is a "terrorist organization" -- a remark that prompted a torrent of criticism and an apology by the end of the day.Paige made the comment about the 2.7 million-member National Education Association in a private meeting at the White House with the National Governors Association, less than a week after he announced the administration was relaxing testing requirements under the No Child Left Behind law. The landmark education law has come under mounting opposition, and the NEA has been among its strongest detractors.
yes, he later apologized and said that he supported individual teachers, who are the 'real soldiers of democracy.' unlike, of course, that multiheaded hydra known as the national education association, who are basically mass murderers.
not a part of the union? you're a stalwart citizen. join, though, and you might as well stamp 'osama bin laden gives me backrubs in the classroom while i brainwash my children' on your forehead.
i mentioned to some friends a couple of weeks ago that the rhetoric levels of the right were getting a bit extreme, and here's a good example. and if it was a throwaway example, that would be one thing. but it's just another in a string of incidents where people that the right disagrees with on policy issues are equated as unamerican. and it's starting to get a bit disturbing in its repetition.
it's bad enough when you're denounced as being in bed with the enemy when you're against the war, but to do so over education policy? it's simply ludicrious. not everything is a part of the war on terror, even if that's the way this administration would like it to be.
Posted by kilgore at February 24, 2004 05:33 AM