Into My Own

Let's fire the bottom 6%

2008-12-20T08:30:00.003-05:00

David Brooks, who knows nothing about education (and not much about anything else), was on NPR yesterday paraphrasing Malcolm Gladwell (who's paraphrasing Eric Hanushek) that we could dramatically improve education by firing the bottom 6% of teachers.

Brooks' claim is such an ignorant oversimplification of what Gladwell says as to be irresponsible, but all Brooks cares about is tough talk on teachers that is designed to irritate the teachers' unions whom he claims block "education reform", which to Brooks means nothing more than any program designed to punish teachers for the failure of students.

It leads to the logical question, "How do we identify the bottom 6%?" While Brooks acts as though there's nothing to it, of course such an identification statistically relies on a highly complicated statistical analysis.

Gladwell in his New Yorker piece discusses the use of value-added measures to identify teachers who aren't performing, but Gladwell, unlike Brooks, understands that this isn't as easy as it sounds:

It’s only a crude measure, of course. A teacher is not solely responsible for how much is learned in a classroom, and not everything of value that a teacher imparts to his or her students can be captured on a standardized test. Nonetheless, if you follow Brown and Smith for three or four years, their effect on their students’ test scores starts to become predictable: with enough data, it is possible to identify who the very good teachers are and who the very poor teachers are. What’s more—and this is the finding that has galvanized the educational world—the difference between good teachers and poor teachers turns out to be vast.

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile. And remember that a good teacher costs as much as an average one, whereas halving class size would require that you build twice as many classrooms and hire twice as many teachers.

(Read the rest: Gladwell is a great writer, even if I take issue with him on some points)

Now Gladwell understands the basic problem that exists here--where to find the good teachers to replace the less effective ones? My guess is that even without value added, most administrators have a pretty good idea who is effective and who isn't. The problem is that in the kinds of schools where "reform" is talked about--high poverty schools (no one wants to "reform" the successful, wealthy suburban schools)--they have trouble attracting and keeping the highest quality teachers. Gladwell goes on to discuss the ways to identify a good teacher when you are hiring, how to identify the best teaching candidates. But the problem isn't identifying them--they don't always stand out in an interview, God knows, but most of the time they do. The problem is getting them to go to work in the districts that need the most help.

But the focus on teacher quality, as important as is, shouldn't be the only thing that gets reformed. Gladwell acknowledges, although it's not the focus of the article, that there are many other factors that affect achievement, and I would argue that there are some that have never been touched by "reform". No one ever talks about the social and community factors that need fixing in order to make real improvement in schooling. A great teacher is important, and we don't need value added measures to tell us that. But a great teacher can't dress a kid in the morning, get them out the door and on the bus, can't give them a stable home environment to let them read and do homework, can't meet their basic needs so they can come to school with a clear head ready to learn.

I have moved to a school with a much higher incidence of poverty, with more responsibility (incidentally, that's why I hardly ever blog anymore). I meet with my teachers regularly and ask them what is the biggest obstacle to achievement? What's one thing that if we could change would help you the most?

Their answer: attendance.

I would say to Gladwell, the top 94% of the teachers you identify aren't worth a damn if the kids don't show up every day. I have a student who has missed 45 days of school so far. Over half. How will her teachers' value-added score look? This student hasn't spent one moment in front of a judge.

Here's a "reform" for David Brooks: figure out a way to get kids to school every day. Let's start with the basics.

Did Obama voters help pass Dayton School Levy?

2008-11-15T07:01:00.004-05:00

Anthony Gottschlich of the Dayton Daily has a fascinating article suggesting that the Obama factor helped passed the critical Daytong Public Schools levy on Nov. 4. He's got some numbers to prove it.

Of the 126 precincts that approved the winning levy — 40 more than the unsuccessful levy of May 2007 — all but one went for Democrat Obama, unofficial totals from the Montgomery County Board of Elections show.

The lone precinct that approved the 4.9-mill operating levy and went for Republican John McCain was Riverside E in the northeastern quadrant of the city. But only 35 residents voted in that precinct, and the levy squeaked by 18-17.

"It's not rocket science," Steve Avakian, a community outreach consultant for several local school districts, said Friday, Nov. 14. "The Obama factor certainly helped them in a big way. Without that it probably would have been a much closer election."

It's clear that the large turnout that the presidential election created had an effect on some local school levies; but whether Obama supporters tended to support school levies or McCain voters tended to oppose them is kind of a dicey argument. Still, it seems clear from Gottschlich's article that in Dayton, at least, there was an association between the two votes.

Lesson to school districts: plan your next levy in 2012?

Obama's cabinet

2008-11-12T19:18:00.002-05:00

I think Josh Marshall has this exactly right. Lots of people are trying to determine what kind of government Obama will run by his cabinet appointments. Is he picking Clinton staffers? Gates to stay on? A Republican on the cabinet?

I don't think any of it matters. The cabinet is there to execute the President's will. If they don't, they will move on. We've gotten used to eight years of Bush's appointees leading him, running a rogue government, the vice president running a shadow government. For all of Bush's macho bluster, he really wasn't in control of his own government. It was all Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, although Bush allowed it to happen.

If you paid attention to how the Obama campaign was run, especially in contrast to McCain, it was clear that Obama was in control of his campaign. McCain was frequently said to be the victim of his staffers, whenever his campaign went negative. He tried to make a distinction between his campaign and his own character.

But listening to David Plouffe and David Axelrod talk about the campaign, it was clear who was in charge. When the Wright controversy first broke, Axelrod said that Obama called his team together and told them he was giving a speech on race. If the speech worked, the campaign would move past the Wright controversy. If not, he wouldn't be president. No spin, no strategy, just, well--pardon the irony--straight talk.

Obama's staff will work for him. Even Robert Gates, if he's chosen. Gates will execute Obama's vision, or he'll be out.

Do the Democrats need 60?

2008-11-09T08:28:00.004-05:00

Someone smarter than me needs to answer this:

Do the Democrats really need 60 in the Senate? It's looking more and more within reach.

But it seems to me that when the Dems tried to filibuster when they were in the minority, the GOP was always able to peel away a few votes to prevent a filibuster. Shouldn't the Dems be able to peel away at least a few votes from the GOP from time to time? Or are we assuming they will always vote as a block, even without Bush's goons there to enforce party discipline?

When it comes to judicial nominees, for example, I have to think a Republican or two would vote the Dem's way.

President Obama

2008-11-08T11:12:00.003-05:00

At this point, I'm embarrassed that I wasn't in the Obama camp earlier than I was. I still have reservations about Obama. Merit pay. Iran (Juan Cole makes the point today that we shouldn't be talking about Iran's nuclear ambitions when to date there is no credible evidence of it save the bogeyman strategy of the right). I hear him talking about the middle class but not about the poor.

And yet...

I'm optimistic because of the man's intelligence and demeanor. And the courage he showed in this campaign.

I'm encouraged by his competence in running an extraordinary campaign and his ability to select the right people. Anytime a supporter became a distraction to his campaign, Obama maintained his focus on the ultimate goal. The presidency wouldn't be sacrificed for a single foreign policy advisor who became a target of the right.

I'm encouraged by the fact that the public (a majority at least) rejected fear and division. They rejected the name calling. Obama ran a tough, principled campaign that managed to fight back without debasing itself. There was an extraordinary level of discipline in the campaign.

Our constitutional nightmare is over. We have a president who will adhere to the rule of law. Who will run a transparent government. The revolving door between government and industry has been closed. Competence is again being valued over ideology.

I'm sure there are times over the next eight years (will any Republican really mount a serious challenge in 12?) that I will disagree with President Obama. But given the last eight years, it's hard to imagine any outcome to this election that could have been better. That's cause for optimism, if nothing else.

We're going the right direction.

Party of Ignorance

2008-11-08T11:01:00.003-05:00

Lawrence O'Donnell says what I've felt for quite a while about the Republican party. They celebrate ignorance, in fact they promote it. This was never more clear than in the dying, desperate days of the McCain campaign when they threw everything out that they thought would stick--palling around with terrorists, socialism, and so forth--whether it was true or not. Willfully promoting ignorance and stupidity.

O'Donnell makes the point that Sarah Palin's lack of general knowledge is celebrated by some quarters of the Republican party--that she's coming under attack now by McCain strategists is ironic, to say the least, given the level of stupidity they attempted to peddle for the last several months. When O'Donnell is laughed at for accusing the party of promoting ignorance, he puts it to the test by asking Pat Robertson if he believes in evolution. When Robertson asks O'Donnell if he's descended from monkeys, the point is made. In the GOP, you can't accept scientific truths like evolution and global warming and still be accepted into the fold. And until that changes, the GOP is going to continue to lose elections. The voters want competence, and you can't be beholden to extreme discredited ideologies and move the country forward at the same time.

Racists to the Rescue!

2008-11-02T10:34:00.002-05:00

I've had a few conversations with people lately that go something like this:

"I know the polls show a big lead for Obama, but a lot of people are saying they are voting for him who won't actually do it in the voting booth."

The assumption being, when it gets down to the vote, people won't vote for a black man.

What a pessimistic view of America. I realize that racism isn't dead. The McCain campaign's thinly veiled appeals to racism over the past couple of months have proven that. But I think racist voters have already made their preference for McCain clear. There isn't going to be a secret racist vote that is going to carry the day for John McCain.

Meanwhile, for David Broder to say in the Washington Post that McCain has "avoided covert appeals to race", and to repeat it this morning on MTP, is ridiculous. What campaign has he been paying attention to?

The Real Chickenshit Is John Boehner

2008-11-01T07:46:00.003-04:00

John Boehner, that paragon of virtue and GOP values, was quoted in the DDN as calling Obama a chickenshit for his "present" votes in the Illinois legislature.

Here's the quote, when crying Johnnie was trying to impress some college students at Miami University:

“In Congress, we have a red button, a green button and a yellow button, alright. Green means ‘yes’, red means ‘no’ and yellow means you’re a chicken shit. And the last thing we need in the White House, in the oval office, behind that big desk, is some chicken who wants to push the yellow button.”

Boehner likes to talk tough as we all know, but the truth is that congressional leaders who don't want to take a tough stand simply don't show up, as Boehner has done for 5.5% of votes in the current Congress, including a no-show on the extension of unemployment benefits. Guessing Boehner didn't want to vote for the bill, but didn't want to be portrayed as not helping his laid off AK steel constituents in Middletown... constituents for whom Boehner has done absolutely nothing, all the while AK Steel has basically busted the union in their Middletown plant and driven down wages while Boehner has done nothing.

The guy is nothing more than a political hack who does NOTHING for his district.

Obama, by contrast to Boehner's no shows, voted "present" only 3% of the time.

Will Warren County Lock Down Again in 08?

2008-10-31T20:26:00.003-04:00

Warren County's Board of Elections closed in 04 due to a supposed terrorist threat.

I emailed the BOE recently asking them how they would handle a similar response this year. My questions were:

1. Was the terrorist threat in 2004 credible, and in hindsight, should the board of elections have been open during the counting as required by law?

2. What steps is the board of elections taking to ensure that similar situation doesn't occur again?

The response from the BOE below.

Here's what I got back:

Thank you for your e-mail. In answer to your questions, I started with the Board of Elections after the 2004 Election so I am not sure I am privy to all that occurred. The details as I know them are that our Emergency Management Director had received information of a possible threat and made the decision to lock down the building. I do not have information as to the credibility of the information but it could have been an over-reaction, I am just not certain. I am told that this caused at least one member of the media to be excluded from being in our office for the count but that the properly filed observers were in place in the counting room as well as other members of the media and the “regular” Board Members and employees representing both parties. Point being that the building should have been open to all and apparently it wasn’t but that it certainly was not a count done in secret.

As far as your second question. It has been well established since then that any necessary measures to be taken based on any security threat will go through myself and, if necessary, the Board. No outside entity will dictate this. Access to our office will be open to the public to the extent that it can be and still process the results. Properly filed observers will have access to the room where the count will occur. The building will not be locked until we go home whenever that happens.

I hope this clears up any questions you had. If not, feel free to contact me again.

Well, I did contact him again, asking who made the decision to lock the counting in 04.

I haven't heard back after over a week. I guess that's all the response I'm going to get.

Early voting numbers: Dayton

2008-10-31T20:19:00.004-04:00

The Ohio 3rd is a gerrymandered district which attempts to use Republican voters in rural and suburban Warren and Clinton Counties to counterbalance the heavy Dem advantage in Montgomery County, where Dayton is located. Yesterday Jane Mitakides, the Democratic challenger in the 3rd, sent out these early voting numbers:

· The voters voting in person at the Montgomery County Board of Elections (Montgomery is 75% to 80% of the OH-3 vote) are 15 to 1 declared Democrats over Republicans. Undeclared is about 1/3 of the Democratic total.

· In the mail-in vote in Montgomery County, Democratic votes are nearly 2-to-1, with undeclared equal to the GOP vote.

· District-wide in the mail vote the numbers are Dems 44.0%, GOP 28.2%, undeclared 27.7%

· The mail vote from Oakwood, Washington Township, Kettering and Centerville is Democratic 3796, to GOP 3537. To those not familiar with the district, these are the affluent, suburban GOP strongholds.

Undeclared votes generally break in the same percentages as declared, UNLESS THERE HAS BEEN A BIG NEW VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE, like the one we’ve seen here.

As we know, the Bush advantage in Ohio was slim in 04, so it doesn't take much to flip the scales this time around. While Mitakides still has a long way to go, the numbers are positive for Democrats generally and reflect trends around the country.

Seeing Mitakides win the Ohio 3rd would be awfully sweet.

Callers refuse to read McCain garbage

2008-10-27T18:35:00.002-04:00

How scummy does your campaign have to be when call center workers won't read your lies?

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

Does it get any worse for the McCain campaign?

Californians Calling Ohioans for Obama

2008-10-26T22:25:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow Obama gives a major speech in Canton making his "closing argument" in this election. As luck would have it, my friend Linda just updated me on her recent experiences at an Obama phone bank calling the Canton area from her home in California. Blue staters calling the purple states and pulling them blue. Canton, of course, should be fertile Obama territory, like most of northeastern Ohio, which Obama will almost certainly carry.

Here's Linda's report, slightly redacted:

During today's six-hour phone bank, 12 volunteers dialed 1,119 Ohio voters, mostly in the Canton area. We spoke with many hardworking working-class people, many who work two low-paying jobs just to make ends meet.

The receptions to our calls ranged from the far-right wing-nut crowd proclaiming their love for Sarah Palin and their disdain for our domestic terrorist presidential candidate ;-) , to those who were very sensible, suspicious of the media-bashing of Barack, intelligent but not very well-educated Midwest folks who don't feel free to put yard signs out or slap bumper stickers on their cars.

Paula probably had the strangest encounter with a "Hillary-supporter" who spoke at length about her disappointment in Hillary not getting the nomination and not getting picked as the vice presidential nominee. She then went on to "explain" her transference of her support for Hillary to support for Sarah. Paula very respectfully questioned her transference, gently bringing in how Barack's policy positions are way more in line with Hillary's than are Sarah's, only to be met with that all-too-familiar line-in-the-sand drawn against Barack Obama that can only be explained by closet racism.

Over all, our day was very, very productive. Most of us succeeded at persuading a few fence-sitters to join us in supporting the Obama/Biden ticket. We always love it when that happens!

Yes, we do!

More Ohio Polling Showing Obama, Mitakides Momentum

2008-10-26T08:54:00.003-04:00

The Dayton Daily reports today on a new poll showing Obama with a 3 point lead in Ohio.

The story accompanying the poll is interesting in that it call the Ohio GOP liars.

The Ohio Republican Party, for instance, mailed a flier this week that misrepresents his relationship to William Ayers, a one-time member of the Weather Underground, an anti-government group responsible for bombings in the 1970s, including one at the Pentagon.

"This is the story of William Ayers ... Terrorist. Radical. Friend of Obama," the four-page flier reads on the front. Another one from the party attacks Obama for his support of gun-control bills, though the flier fails to give his complete position on the issue.

The poll focused on national security issues, and found that 56% of Ohioans now think that the Iraq war was a mistake. The poll didn't focus on the economy, unfortunately. However, some more interesting information is coming out of the Mitakides campaign (below).

I received an email this morning from the Mitakides campaign directing me to a Fox News (ugh) story listing the Ohio 3rd as a potential upset. We can only hope. But the interesting thing is that early voting is showing Democratic party identification at 56%. If that trend continues (and voting in 2006 showed Dem party ID up significantly over 2004), not only is Turner in trouble, but McCain as well.

Another bit from the article:

McCain's hard-line Iraq war policy turned off Democrat Drew Abbott, 46, a Cincinnati restaurant owner, small-scale real estate developer and self-described former independent voter.

"I think he is wedded to the concept of our winning," Abbott said. "He thinks we are going to win it. We are not."

Abbott, who has spent a lot of time in Europe, says he is dismayed "at how the world looks at us." During a recent business trip to London, an Iraqi physician asked him, "Why have you destroyed my country?"

"I said, 'I don't know,' and 'I'm sorry,'" Abbott recalled.

Boehner is a hack

2008-10-25T13:56:00.004-04:00

Boehner is pulling out all the stops to make sure Ohio goes for McCain.

First he goes after ACORN.

Now he is trying to get Mukasey to intervene with the Ohio Sec. of State, since the SCOTUS won't do it. Who does he appeal to next, the UN?

President Bush has asked the Justice Department to help determine whether about 200,000 new Ohio voters must use provisional ballots on Election Day.

Bush did so by referring to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey a letter from House Minority Leader John Boehner. In the letter, Boehner outlined concerns that information on the voters' registration forms doesn't match other government records.

Boehner wants Mukasey to compel top election authorities, including Democratic Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, to comply with the Help America Vote Act by providing county boards of election information about such mismatched information.

Cryin' Johnny is cryin' hard. I don't think it's going to have an impact this time around.

Palin 2012?

2008-10-25T13:35:00.004-04:00

The Democrats aren't that lucky.

No, it's off to Fox News in 2010 (although why wait?). Much more lucrative for her. Her family doesn't come from money like the McCains, and she's gotten a taste for expensive clothes and make up.

Why wouldn't she? Furthermore, she would increase the average IQ of that organization by about 12 points. And that's not a compliment.

Opie, Andy, and Fonz

2008-10-25T09:09:00.001-04:00

Beautiful, except for the part where Ron Howard takes his shirt off. Try not to give up on the clip at that point. Keep watching, it gets better:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Say anything to win: The GOP's family values strike again

2008-10-25T08:19:00.005-04:00

The Republican Party will say anything to win. And for those who always say, "The Democrats do it too," I challenge you to find anything as callous and idiotic as Brad Blakeman saying that Obama should be flying commercial to visit his dying grandmother who raised him.

Obama's visit to his grandmother obviously wasn't his first during this campaign. When I was reading about the visit on nytimes.com, I happened to notice a link to this previous Caucus blog post about the GOP's attacks on Obama visiting Hawaii in August. At the time the attacks just seemed like the usual "paint them as elitist" narrative that the GOP trots out in any election.

For the past week, the R.N.C. has sent reporters an “Updated Travel Guide” to chronicle Mr. Obama’s trip to Hawaii, adding news clippings, many from the adoring local press, meant to emphasize Mr. Obama’s “celebrity” image.

For example, here is an entry from Monday’s edition of “Barack Obama’s Hawaii Travel Guide” by the R.N.C.:

24-Hour Fitness Kaneohe (45-480 Kaneohe Bay Dr, Kaneohe, Hawaii): The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports that “While many people typically sleep in on Sunday morning, Obama and his wife, Michelle, went for a workout yesterday at 24-Hour Fitness in Kaneohe.”

And from Thursday:

Island Snow Hawaii (130 Kailua Road, Kailua, HI): The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports Obama stopped at Island Snow Hawaii yesterday and “asked for a cone with ‘guava orange, Lanikai lime and choo-choo cherry.’ … A crowd of about 50 people gathered behind him, snapping pictures with digital cameras and cell phones and giving him a round of applause as he exited.”

The Obama campaign, most of which is not on vacation, did their best to ignore the ribbing all week, but the wave apparently broke today.

Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman, sent an e-mail message to reporters today with the subject heading: “RNC ATTACKS: No hamburger, moviegoer or ice cream cone will be spared!”

“Apparently the folks at the RNC don’t like eating cheeseburgers or ice cream with their families, and are not among the millions of Americans who enjoyed Batman,” he said, before continuing to skewer the G.O.P.’s entry about the Obamas’ trip to the movie theater:

PS guys – the article you used to attack Obama for liking Batman also notes that Batman is McCain’s favorite superhero: “JOHN McCAIN: Batman: ”He does justice sometimes against insurmountable odds. And he doesn’t make his good works known to a lot of people, so a lot of people think he’s just a rich playboy.”

What seems pretty obvious now is that Obama must have been visiting his grandmother then also, while taking a break with the rest of his family as well. By refusing to play the sympathy card, refusing to answer the attack by saying, "hey, Mr. Obama has an 86 year old grandmother here, and she isn't doing very well," the Obama campaign managed to keep his grandmother out of the spotlight and avoid scurrilous attacks like Mr. Blakeman's.

This is the family values crowd, folks. (Although I've noticed they've taken that term out of circulation this year.)

Meanwhile, within the same 24 hour news cycle, the McCain campaign has attacked science on fruit flies even though that science has led to a better understanding of autism in a speech Palin was giving about special education. The mind reels. And the campaign pushed a story about a young woman--in all seriousness, may God bless this troubled young lady--being sexually attacked and disfigured by an Obama supporter even though it never really happened.

Fortunately for all of us, this kind of campaigning isn't working in 2008. If McCain wins a single state it will be too many. Until the GOP begins getting serious about talking about issues and stops playing these divisive political games, they are going to continue to lose elections. Even in "Real America".

Dropout Rates Will Rise: The Financial Crisis and Students

2008-10-22T22:52:00.003-04:00

People who work in education will tell you that the more poverty becomes an issue for students, the more likely those students will be to drop out.

In our current economic climate, I'm seeing more and more anecdotal evidence of this trend. As economic insecurity hits home, some students are more likely to stay at home in order to work. This becomes especially true for 18 year old students, for whom school is no longer compulsory. In some areas, the courts are aggressive about making sure under-18's stay in school. But in other, more populous areas, the courts just don't have the resources to deal with all of the students who are missing school. In urban centers, then, the attendance problem becomes even more pronounced, and students get lost in the system.

When Mom can't pay the mortgage, a kid is more likely to work. I've recently seen a situation in which a two teenage boys have taken jobs doing roofing (a hot job right now, after the recent windstorms that hit southern Ohio) in order to help Mom keep her house. Two problems with this: first, roofing is prohibited by child labor laws for kids under 18. But when a relative owns the company and pays cash, and has no scruples about child labor laws or work permits, they can get away with it, and the kids make good money. After they have missed enough school, trying to come back and finish or get back on track seems daunting.

Kids whose parents lose their homes may get jobs, but the other worry is that they move out of the district and become transient. Kids moving from district to district can't be tracked as easily by attendance officers, and it becomes really tragic--students who should be in school aren't, and the systems in place to track them and keep them in school fall apart as kids move back and forth across district lines. If I could get Gov. Strickland's ear, one change I'd propose in education would be to create a statewide tracking system and attendance reporting system for students, to keep tabs on students and make sure they stay in school. I have no idea how expensive such a system would be, but if it could reduce truancy it would be worth any cost.

When people talk about dropout rates, they usually concern themselves with how high dropout rates can impact the local economy. But the reverse is true also: a weak economy can drive up dropout rates. I'm predicting that 2009 will be a bad year for dropout rates: the mortgage crisis has to be causing more students to drop out. What I've seen in my own school leads me to think so, and the possibility should drive policy makers to consider even more strongly what measures can help people saddled with bad mortgages. The impacts of the financial crisis, I'm afraid, will be with us for a long time.

Obama's Grandmother

2008-10-21T20:08:00.004-04:00

Great piece on Obama's grandparents in the Atlantic. Read the whole thing, but this reflection was moving:

...I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

Get Ready

2008-10-18T09:38:00.002-04:00

NPR had a fascinating piece on West Virginia detailing the state of the race there, and in this piece they actually got a voter to admit that he wasn't ready for a black president. Usually, of course the racism is more subtle, expressed in smears about Obama's name or his religion, or "go back to Kenya" as in the video below. These people who aren't ready for a black president had better get ready, because it looks increasingly as if they are going to have one. It's going to be fascinating to see how the next four years play out in the event of an Obama presidency, whether his failures (there surely will be some, hopefully outweighed by successes) will be attributed to race by people like those in the video below, and it will be interesting to see the extent to which race becomes less and less relevent in America's views of the man.

I was strolling the Internet this morning when I found this at TPM, and I also saw the video from the Daily Show of the infuriating indecision of "undecideds". But I'll take the undecideds any day, over people like these:

Poor Paul Krugman

2008-10-12T09:53:00.002-04:00

Thank God Paul Krugman is there.

But is there a more difficult and thankless job than sitting at a roundtable, as Krugman did today, with George Will and Cokie Roberts and trying desperately to correct them on their bullshit? (This Week with George Stphanopoulos)

I don't have a transcript but when the subject of McCain's rabid supporters came up, Krugman pointed out that the GOP base has always viewed and Democratic rule as illegitimate, pointing out the rabid hatred of the Clintons and suggesting it will be worse this time should Obama hold onto his lead. Roberts then compared this to the liberal view of Bush as illegitimate after 2000! The rules of the show apparently prevent Krugman from jumping back in--they don't shout over the top of one another on This Week--but he did manage, "I reject the equivalence." Well, of course he rejects it, because there is no comparison--the rejection of Clinton was due to the fact that he was not a Republican; the rejection of Bush was based on a highly suspicious election outcome in which a politically driven Supreme Court intalled him in the White House!

In Cokie world, it's the same thing. Poor Paul Krugman, to have to sit and listen to that garbage, and not come out of his seat--quite an act of restraint.

Sounds like testing your God to me

2008-10-11T17:58:00.003-04:00

Unbelievable:

I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and election day.

But wait, there's more:

The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God's will from the governor's office.

What she didn't tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan taxpayers, who picked up the $639.50 tab for her airplane tickets and per diem fees.

Who's the uniter?

2008-10-09T20:04:00.002-04:00

Obama has frequently said that he admires McCain's service. Biden was so effusive in his praise of McCain that Saturday Night Live made fun of him for it in the post debate mock up featuring the incomparable Tina Fay.

But when have you ever, EVER, heard the slightest praise of Barack Obama from the McCain campaign?

Bring em on

2008-10-09T19:47:00.002-04:00

When Obama said today that McCain wouldn't make those personal comments to his face (see below) it wasn't just talk. Obama is goading McCain to bring it up in the debate, which means two things: First, he thinks the public won't respond to these attacks; and Second, that Obama has a response in mind.

Funny, as I write this, Chris Cillizza is on Hardball saying more or less the same thing, that Obama's taunt is equivalent to "bring it on".

Surely Obama is ready to smack McCain down in the next debate on this line of attack.

"looking backwards"

2008-10-03T06:09:00.002-04:00

I thought the debate was pretty even, although I turned it off when Palin started talking about education, just so my blood pressure didn't get into "stroke" range.

It shouldn't have been even. Biden should have hit her over and over again on the
"Bridge to Nowhere" garbage and how colossally unprepared she is for any intellectual activity beyond a high school civics exam. But once again the Democrats don't want anyone to think they're mean. God forbid.

But the most offensive part of the evening was when Palin tried to wash away eight years of Bush grime with the line about "looking forward rather than backward". I can understand the McCain/Palin desire to get rid of the Bush albatross, but no one who has been as closely tied to Bush as John McCain can get away with that. And it's disgusting and insulting to the intelligence of the American people for Palin to try to get away with it. Fortunately, Biden wasn't having it, and kept hitting her on Bush throughout the debate.

Palin was slick, but she was as vapid as ever. She had nothing substantial to say throughout the evening, no specifics to offer on any topic. It was a steady stream of platitudes and sound bytes all night long--and I'm sure the right wing base loved it.