Friday, July 20, 2007

The real lessons to be learned from the Barbara Erwin episode

More from Martin...This from vere loqui.
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There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from the Barbara Erwin debacle. Erwin was the short-lived Kentucky School Commissioner who never even served her first day because she was run out of town for padding her resume. Among these lessons are:
  • It's a good idea for a school board to hire a search firm that actually does background checks of candidates
  • It's a good idea for a governor to appoint a school board that acts swiftly when it's clear it needs to cut its losses
  • It's a good idea for the governor to exercise his will over his own appointees...
...But listen to this somewhat less than perspicacious [Here, Martin is being less than obvious. It means "shrewd."] observation from the Courier-Journal:

It [the Erwin episode] leads one to believe the speculation that Gov. Fletcher was focused on appointing a board that would quietly share a right-wing fundamentalist school agenda, not one that could function properly.

Huh?

To say that this observation comes from outer space would be an insult to extra-terrestrials everywhere. How could you possibly derive this observation from what has happened? In fact, how could you conclude this from anything the board has done? ...
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I'm guessing I like C-J a bit more than Martin does - but he's right here.

C-J is probably justified to be suspicious, but there is enough evidence to reject C-J's suspicion in this case. Among the Commish finalists last time around, the right-wing nut job of the bunch would have been Richard La Pointe, who served George Allen in Virginia.

Erwin gets a clean bill of health on that score.

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