Politics And The Press:

REPUBLICAN DEBATE NUMBER 20:

Watching the Republican can­di­dates debate Wednesday night remind­ed me why I can’t stand politicians.

(Getty image)

Rick Santorum said he vot­ed for no child left behind, a sig­na­ture accom­plish­ment of for­mer President George W Bush. However he said he did so for the team, sug­gest­ing that he did so as a repub­li­can in sup­port of a repub­li­can pres­i­dent. Mitt Romney wast­ed no time in jump­ing on Santorum berat­ing him for doing so, ask­ing quote ” I won­der which team he was talk­ing about”?

Of course research lat­er shows Romney stat­ing his sup­port for no child left behind as a good thing. No child left behind I believe, was a plan cre­at­ed with the best of inten­tions and orches­trat­ed and passed into law by the Bush Administration. Critics of No child left behind have now point­ed out that the Act, forces teach­ers to teach to a test , rather than allow stu­dents to test to the teach­ing they receive.

The truth is this should have been obvi­ous to pol­i­cy mak­ers from the get-go, kids do not process infor­ma­tion the same way , nei­ther do they assim­i­late infor­ma­tion at the same time. This is influ­enced by gen­der, eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and myr­i­ad oth­er issues. What I find loath­some is that Romney now make an issue out of no child left behind, after it is seen not to be work­ing as the Bush admin­is­tra­tion thought it would.

The ques­tion is why can’t some­one just admit that they sup­port­ed some­thing that they thought was in the best inter­est of the coun­try and it did not shake out that way? President Obama has since allowed sev­er­al states to opt out of no child left behind.

IS NEW JERSEY’S GOVERNOR CRIS CHRISTIE HAVING IT BOTH WAYS ?

New Jersey’s ram­bunc­tious Governor Chris Christie has stat­ed over and over again that he isn’t run­ning for pres­i­dent of the United States, but is he being truth­ful? Christie recent­ly bucked crit­ics in his state by order­ing flags flown at half-staff after the death of pop icon Whitney Houston. Many peo­ple includ­ing some police unions argue that Houston had not lived a per­fect­ly angel­ic life and as such that hon­or ought not be accord­ed her. Christie did not budgec he stood by his deci­sion. He argued legit­i­mate­ly that many notable icons from New Jersey ‚like Frank Snatra and oth­ers, lived lives sim­i­lar to Houston and the same hon­or was accord­ed them when they died . He argued cor­rect­ly that Elvis Presley also received the same hon­or, and no one found it objectionable.

Police unions always take the posi­tion that any­one who fall foul of the laws, or ever suc­cumbed to human frail­ties are dis­pos­able. In their per­fect lit­tle worlds they some­times play God, they may be remind­ed to take a look in the mir­ror and amongst their own ranks. People make mis­takes in life , includ­ing cops,it smacks of some­thing else oth­er than what they claim, when they take that holy-than-thou atti­tude. It also reduces sup­port and empa­thy oth­ers might feel toward their causes.

Governor Christie did not back down, but was it out of a core prin­ci­pled belief or is he audi­tion­ing for a place on the repub­li­can tick­et in what many spec­u­late could be a bro­kered con­ven­tion in August? Christie has tak­en a posi­tion on most nation­al issues, he is one of the most quot­ed repub­li­cans, yet he main­tains that he will not run for pres­i­dent. Christie also showed a side of him that may play well with repub­li­can pri­ma­ry voters.

Christie clashed with New’s week Johnathan Capehart also a MSNBC con­trib­u­tor , and who also hap­pens to be open­ly gay. Christie got real ugly lash­ing out at Capehart when Capehart point­ed to incon­sis­ten­cy between his posi­tion and that of pres­i­dent Obama as it relates to gay mar­riage. Christe resort­ed to being a school yard bul­ly by revert­ing to the following

“I used to be a pros­e­cu­tor. I’m not going to be cross-exam­ined by you this morn­ing,” said Christie to Capehart in a heat­ed exchange on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “You’re going to lose.”Read more: http://​poloti​co​.com

This kind of attack on media is symp­to­matic of repub­li­can can­di­dates run­ning for pres­i­dent but we have not seen that kind of ran­cid rabid con­fronta­tion­al school yard bul­ly type tac­tic employed in gen­er­al . It smacked of Newt Gingrich’s attack on Juan Williams ‚a phys­i­cal rough­ing up of CNN’s Don Lemon by bul­lies in the Michelle Bachman’s for­mer cam­paign, and for the record Lemon is also an open­ly gay African-American journalist.

Newt Gingrich also lashed out at CNN’s John King for lead­ing with a Question about his infi­deli­ties and state­ments Marianne Gingrich made to anoth­er net­work about him want­i­ng to have an open mar­riage. Gingrich lashed out with a false sense of out­rage to rau­cous applause from the par­ti­san crowd in the hall. Mitt Romney also lashed out at John King in the last debate , telling John King “you get to ask what you want I answer what I want“in response to King demand­ing he answer the ques­tion he asked him. of course the attack on the media seem to always be a clar­i­on call for right wingers in the repub­li­can par­ty when their lies are exposed.

So what is Chris Christie run­ning for ? I don’t know ! I feel how­ev­er Christie would like to see Romney get the nom­i­na­tion and ask him to be his run­ning mate.

Say you read it here first when it come to pass.