Friday, October 17, 2008

It took me a couple of days to say what Jeff Chang says in one post.

A sampling:

Voter registration fraud doesn't mean that Mickey Mouse will show up and try to vote on November 4th. Voter suppression, however, is an active Republican strategy that's been in place since the 1964 Voting Rights Act expanded enfranchisement. Is there any wonder why election protection groups feel they need to be in communities of color, working-class people, immigrants, and not in, say, Salt Lake City?

And if we want to talk Bill Ayers, let's start with education. Ayers has quietly done important work in Chicago and earned the respect of the best education leaders in the country, liberals and conservatives alike.

McCain, on the other hand, asserted last night that the country had finally arrived at equal access to education, apparently unaware that school segregation has climbed since the Reagan era to levels unseen since the eve of Brown vs. Board of Education. In his effort to push vouchers, he confused them with charter schools and lied—with a big smile—about Washington D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee's position on them. McCain simply doesn't seem to have as much knowledge or passion on education and higher education as he does about Obama's supposedly scary relationships.

And here is the thing. No one really cares about my friend Bill Ayers and no one really cares about ACORN except for the right-wing nuts and racists in the party, the kind of folks who show up at rallies to yell "Kill him!" when Obama's name is mentioned. Instead I think most voters, like me, want to know how the war can be ended, the economy be turned around, and the education system be fixed.

Aside from Obama's having made a mistake on doubling the number of charter schools in Illinois (he actually approved legislation doubling the number of charters in Chicago), this is one case of the lies catching up to McCain only to bite him in the butt. Obama's gaffe could be said to be an honest mistake - McCain's cannot be explained in that way at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They want to retain power

at

any

cost.

It's horrendous.

Anonymous said...

It's hold your breath time. I can hardly stand the suspense. Please let this happen.