“I’m certainly not a quitter. I’m a fighter and that’s why I’m doing this, to go out there and fight for what’s right.”
That’s Sarah Palin talking to CNN yesterday about her decision to, ahem, quit as governor of Alaska. (The video of the entire nine-minute interview is here.)
If Sarah Palin vanishes from public life, my days will be far less entertaining.
Word has leaked out that Gov. Rick Perry may name Cynthia Dunbar as the new chair of the perpetually embarrassing State Board of Education. The news that Dunbar — one of the most outspoken of the State Board’s seven Christian conservatives — might claim the gavel elicited a collective groan from centrist and left-leaning observers and the critics who helped oust Don McLeroy from the Big Chair.
Dunbar’s critics seem to view her possible appointment as a setback. It’s nothing of the sort.You’ll remember Dunbar as the board member who last fall shared with the world her unique insights about Barack Obama. My personal favorite was her column in the Church Report Online, which isn’t edited by the Church Lady, it only reads that way. Dunbar’s piece was titled, “Barack Hussein Obama would make a great Leader…. of an Unconstitutional, Infanticidal, Communistic, Dictatorial Regime.”Subtle she ain’t. And that’s the point. Dunbar is no nuttier than McLeroy and she’s just as overt about her agenda. (By the way, you can find more Dunbar material on her site, www.cynthiadunbar.com.)It’s certainly no surprise that Perry would nominate another Christian conservative to chair the State Board.
Of course, those of you in the non-wing-nut section of the audience would prefer Perry choose a moderate, but that was never going to happen. The man’s trying to win a Republican primary against Kay Bailey, and he desperately needs the Christian Right.
So the question is, which brand of social conservative do you want? Will that person be as clear about their agenda, as ineffective and as easy a target as McLeroy?
Other members of the State Board might be far more dangerous than Dunbar, if given the opportunity.
Take, for instance, Barbara Cargill—a social conservative from The Woodlands. She’s a science teacher who runs science camps for kids. She’s soft-spoken, unfailingly polite and much savvier than McLeroy.
At a board meeting in late January, Cargill managed to pass several anti-evolutionary amendments into the new science standards by presenting them in harmless-sounding language. Cargill holds similar beliefs as Dunbar and McLeroy, but she has that Dick Cheney ability to make truly nutty ideas sound entirely reasonable.
I suspect that Cargill would be a lower-profile chair, generate less controversy and offer a more elusive target for critics. She could prove far more effective at passing a socially conservative agenda.
So the critics shouldn’t fret about Dunbar. They fared pretty well with McLeroy as a foil, and I bet the same would be true under Dunbar. They’ll always know where she’s coming from, and she’s already shown a penchant for making herself a lightning rod for criticism.
And, besides, it could be a lot worse.
If anyone thought the State Board of Education was chastened by the recent controversy over evolution, by the dethroning of its chairman and by the many, many bills filed by lawmakers this legislative session to strip the board of its power, well, think again. None of those bills passed, and the State Board is at it once more.
The latest lunacy concerns revisions of the social studies curriculum. The board appointed six experts to review the current social studies standards. As they did with science, the seven social conservatives on the State Board made sure that three of those “experts” were Christian Right activists. And that’s how we ended up with David Barton—founder of WallBuilders, former vice chair of the Texas GOP, and avowed opponent of the separation of church and state—as one of the experts reviewing what Texas kids learn in social studies class. Hat-tip on this to the Texas Freedom Network. TFN, in a blog post this afternoon, identifies the two other Christian conservative activists on the six-member panel.In his social studies review, Barton contends that teachers should instruct students that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, established with Biblical principles. He also contends that Cesar Chavez and Colin Powell shouldn’t be featured as influential historical figures. Barton writes: “Cesar Chavez may be a choice representing diversity but he certainly lacks the stature, impact, and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is a praiseworthy to be heralded to students as someone ‘who modeled active participation in the democratic process.’”Another member of the expert panel—Peter Marshall, the president of Peter Marshall ministries—writes that, “To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous. Chavez is hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.”You can read all six experts’ critiques here. It appears that social studies curriculum will be the new target for social conservatives on the State Board in the next year.
Lord help us.
There’s an old journalism cliché that crusty city editors used to tell their cub reporters to stoke their skepticism: “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.” Don’t just swallow what people tell you. Don’t mindlessly accept the conventional wisdom. Look for the story behind the story. If there’s a theme for this blog, that will be it. I’m a contrarian. Always have been. Contrarians are independent thinkers. We try to remain skeptical of what people say, particularly statements by public officials or anything in press-release form. We’re suspicious of official histories. And that, I hope, will be the essence of this blog: countering the conventional wisdom, looking for the hidden story in the day’s big news, fact-checking politicians and special interests, teasing out hypocrisy, exposing tiny lies and larger truths. One note of clarification: I like to think there’s a difference between contrarians and devil’s advocates—people who annoyingly argue an opposing view point, regardless of the merits, simply for argument’s sake. Those are the people who will argue with you for 45 minutes at a barbeque or a dinner party, then suddenly say they agreed with you all along and were just playing devil’s advocate, and who, if it were socially and legally permissible, you would stab with a fork. Contrarians, by contrast, challenge the conventional wisdom only when they think they’re right and when there’s a good case to make. I’ll be mostly making this up as I go along. So I want to hear from you, even if you’re a devil’s advocate. You can leave comments, questions, rants, corrections, profanity-laced invectives, and spam ads for mail-order Russian brides in the comments section below. Or email me at mann[at]texasobserver.org.
If anyone thought the State Board of Education was chastened by the recent controversy over evolution, by the dethroning of its chairman and by the many, many bills that lawmakers filed this legislative session to strip the board of its power, well think again. The State Board is at it once more. The latest lunacy concerns revisions of the social studies curriculum. The board appointed six experts to review the current social studies standards. As they did with science, the seven social conservatives on the State Board made sure that three of the six experts were members of the Christian Right. And that’s how we ended up with David Barton—founder of WallBuilders, former vice chair of the Texas GOP and avowed opponent of the separation of church and state—as one of the experts reviewing what Texas schools teach kids in social studies class. A hat-tip on this to the Texas Freedom Network, which also identifies two other Christian conservative activists on the six-member panel, in a blog post this afternoon. In his social studies review, Barton contends that teachers should instruct students that the U.S. was founded as Christian nation, established with Biblical principles. He also contends that Cesar Chavez and Colin Powell shouldn’t be featured as influential historical figures. Barton writes: “Cesar Chavez may be a choice representing diversity but he certainly lacks the stature, impact, and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is a praiseworthy to be heralded to students as someone ‘who modeled active participation in the democratic process.’” Another member of the expert panel—Peter Marshall, the president of Marshall ministries—writes that, “To have Cesar Chavez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous. Chavez is hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.”You can read all six experts’ critiques here. It appears that social studies curriculum will be the next battleground for the State Board for the coming year. Lord help us.