Linking without telling me what it says and then asking me not to click. That's just cruel.

Gotta hand it to the GOP, they are politically head and shoulders above most Democrats. It makes me wish they weren't evil and corrupt because at least they know how politics works.

On NPR this morning they had outtakes of the Senate hearing and I heard Republican after Republican denouncing the bailout. Elizabeth Dole (who needs a boost in her re-election campaign). Richard Shelby. They all talked about the taxpayer money and the irresponsibility of Wall Street. Dole also referenced angry constituents.

And right as the GOP has the opportunity to break with the President over an unpopular Wall Street bailout plan, one Democrats will probably fiddle with and then agree to, Murdoch rolls out Ayers to raise doubts about Obama. Fucking perfect.

The electoral version of the Shock Doctrine.

that is a bizarre description of the Annenberg Challenge. I don't have much use for anything connected to Annenberg, but that is a bizarre description.

The draft dodgers have come home from Canada and the prison sentences have been served. Everyone agrees that Vietnam was wrong and the draft targeted the less privileged. We're over it.

Had Obama actually prepared for the run, he would have distanced himself from Ayres properly - with time, and a few well-thought out statements that were actually resonant with how Democrats now feel about sixties radicals. Instead, we get simple denial at odds with historical reality - which is the only reason this is an issue at all.

Unless there is something bad about Ayres that we don't know, I don't think Ayres can hurt him. But Rezko, Rezko can destroy him even unintentionally. That's where the bombshell lies even without new information.

That and who gets to own the narrative.

The big bomb part of this is obama trying to downplay his relationship with Ayres, as if he ran into the guy at Whole Foods one time. Now the republican investigation will get to drip, drip, drip each memo or meeting showing they really worked together for quite a long time.

Ultimately, it isn't Ayres that will hurt - it's the denial of a relationship.

in this environment Ayres will seem like ancient history. Actually I think Obama's ideas about charter schools are poison, based on what I have seen here in DC, but I don't think anyone cares right now.

soon as Congress caves in--the media will move on to the next thing, and the GOP is laying the seeds now--they've been planting them for a year now.

Ayers = not so bad for his campaign; Rezko = potentially really bad.

Yes, in a perfect world, both of these candidates would be taken to task for supporting the dismantling of public education, but no one seems to care, anymore. As long the narrative is about "lazy, urban students" and their "evil teacher's unions" the Dems will never get this issue back. What's even worse is when the leading Democrats play along. Obama has already made known he's not much a fan of unionized teachers, and it really didn't hurt him since they were for Hillary, anyways.

From what i understand, the Annenburg Challenge for the Chicago schools was to limit the size of each school and to get parents trained to become locally involved and leverage the assets of their local communities.

Where's the evil here?

is part of a charter school movement that will make a bad situation worse. I have been documenting the atrocities on my blog.

If Rezko was going to blow up it would have done so by now. Actually I don't think Rezko is in a position to ask for anything. Once Obama is Pres it will be very easy to presuade Rezko to stay quiet in jail that life would be worse if he tried to move against Obama.

If the press tries with Obama what they did to Bill they will find that Obama is a very different character.

But truthfully I have ceased to care.

First of all, Ayers was and still is, I believe, a member of the small schools movement. Although one of it's tenants is that there need to be many different kinds of schools within the public system, to the extent that they champion charter schools, these were small schools meant to escape the rigidity of large school systems, and especially of standard testing, schools often based in specific communities to whom they would be directly responsibie, but always WITHIN the public school system.

I'd like Obama to be a little more clear about the distinction, but I don't believe that he has ever endorsed privatized charter schools, he's talking about diversity within public education, although I do believe that he has said that he is willing to look at private charter schools in terms of their record of achievements. Those are mighty thin, as it happens.

The Annenberg Challenge was deeply influenced by a school reform movement that was entirely liberal and progressive. A key figure here is Deborah Meiers who is the woman who started the small schools in Spanish Harlem that became famous because of the violin program started in one of them. Unfortunately, there were many better reasons for people to have paid attention to what she and her staff and her staff and their parents achieved. I don't have time now to give a lot of links, but I'll try to come back and do a post.

It's using the Annenburg Challenge to repeat, as many times as possible, that Ayres is a domestic terrorist and an unrepentant one at that.

If the DLC report that just came out is even vaguely right, and this election will be won or lost with Middle America's swing voters, then Ayres participation in the Weatherman matters. Yes, I know all the OFB lines about how he's this great Professor of Courage now, and that was oh so long ago (before history even began!), but most folks just don't cotton to people who participate in bombings and then don't even feel bad about it.

Here's the typical swing voters Democrats need to win (btw, the DLC isn't buying the OFB line about pulling in sufficient AAs and younger voters to offset working class white voters):

“A typical male voter in that category will likely be between 30 and 59 years old, live in a suburb or small town in the South or Midwest, and be married with no children living at home. He’s likely to be a Republican or independent, moderate or conservative, not a member of a labor union, pro-life, and in favor smaller government. Finally, he’s most likely to be Protestant but not a weekly churchgoer.”

“His female counterpart has an only slightly different profile. She’s also likely to be between the ages of 30 and 59, married with no children living at home, a Republican or independent, moderate or conservative, not a member of a union, pro-life, and for smaller government. She’s most likely to live in a suburb in the South and have a gun in her household. Finally, she’s more likely to be Catholic and a weekly churchgoer.”

In other words, this is the same demographic Obama has sucked at reaching throughout his whole campaign, their support for him is not the crazed adulation of Lattes and college kids, and when they start hearing Obama-friend-terrorist, it's over. The fact that he lied about their connection just makes it worse, but that's just icing.

While PB1.0/2.0 are busy arguing about charter schools the Republicans are just going to keep saying "Obama" blah blah random words "bombings" blah blah random words "terrorist", and that's what's going to get into people's brains. When they talk about the education aspect of the Obama-Ayres relationship, it's all about 'radical' ideas (translation: un-American and un-patriotic). Again, just more icing.

Those magnet schools are essentially charter schools within the public school system.

Vouchers are for private charter schools - that has been the argument. Rightwingers and others hostile to the very notion of a public school system long ago took the nomenclature of a movement meant to diversify the kinds of public schools there are - i.e., the "charter school" and used that as a vehicle for arguing that there ought to be a way to provide public monies to private schools, which were supposedly to be aimed at providing "choice" to parents and children presently ill-served by their public schools, by means of a voucher system whereby parents could get public money and spend it how they wished for whichever school they wanted their children to attend.

It was and continues to be a beguiling fantasy, and those charter schools and the voucher system were and are meant to undermine the very notion of a free public school option for every American child.

To be against vouchers is to be against privatizing public education. Obama is against that. Charter and magnet schools within the public school system are a different animal.

My comment was only meant to clarify DCBloggers.

I think Obama will be making a big mistake if he curtails any of his plans because of this bailout, and what interests me is how a liberal progressive movement can work to help him see that the first year of his presidency will be the one during which he will have the greatest backing for change and innovation.

school systems budget. The formula used to determine how much the charter school receives per student is a calculation set at the high end of demand not accounting for students who do not have special accomodations. This leads to an inflated $$ amount per student, crippling the budget of the public school system.

I love this job!

Rinse, lather, repeat.

I love this job!

Moderating?

Was that comment directed at my comment? I'm not sure what you're saying there.

I think people should be talking about charter schools (and magnet schools, and any other proposal to change the educational system).

I just don't think the Republicans bringing up Annenburg has anything whatsoever to do with wanting to talk about education, not even to push their corporate-run schools crap. The just want to push the affiliation with Ayres.