Terry Moe Is A Schmo, and the Wall Street Journal is Pathetic

What does the Wall Street Journal do in a time that one might expect the journalistic voice of Wall Street to be doing a little soul searching as their most loyal readers line up for their corporate welfare bailout billions to cover the missing money from the corrupt feeding frenzy that is now concluding the Bush years. Forget it. In today's cover-your-ass-and-change-the subject editorial, Rupert's Boys have brought in Hoover hack, Terry Moe, to lecture Mr. Obama on how he could do for American education what unrestrained greed has done for Wall Street and the American economy. Charming:

. . . . Democrats favor educational "change" -- as long as it doesn't affect anyone's job, reallocate resources, or otherwise threaten the occupational interests of the adults running the system. Most changes of real consequence are therefore off the table. The party specializes instead in proposals that involve spending more money and hiring more teachers -- such as reductions in class size, across-the-board raises and huge new programs like universal preschool. These efforts probably have some benefits for kids. But they come at an exorbitant price, both in dollars and opportunities foregone, and purposely ignore the fundamentals that need to be addressed.

This morning the headline from the front page is another $300 billion or so to cover Citi's dirty business, which is on top of the trillion+ already committed to pay for the corruption and thievery of the AIGs and the other deregulated empires of greed. Obama's entire education initiative, which includes 10 billion for universal pre-school, 11 billion for college tuition assistance, and 8 billion to boost for the poorest schools, represents less than one percent of the projected cost of the bailouts for the Wall Street scam artists. And it represents less than 10 percent of the Pentagon's weapons cost overrun for one year. Put another way, Obama's entire education plan would pay for almost twelve weeks in Iraq.

I've taken the liberty to include another paragraph from Moe's hectoring, which includes a finger wagging on accountability, yes, accountability. I've taken the liberty, too, to include a few words in brackets that would make this an entirely appopriate editorial for the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, WSJ would rather focus on punishing the powerless for imagined offenses that have nothing to do with the crime:

. . . .Real accountability is about standing up for children [American citizens]. The adults are supposed to be teaching kids something, and accountability demands hard, objective measures -- through sophisticated testing and information systems -- of how well they are actually doing that. Good performance needs to be rewarded. But poor performance needs to be uprooted: Schools [Corporations] need to be reconstituted, teachers [CEOs] need to be moved out of the classroom [corporate suites], jobs need to be put at risk -- because if they aren't, children [citizens] continue to be victimized. . . . .

Hey guys, do you remember the children's story about the Emperor, the one with no clothes? Take some time over the holidays, Mr. Moe and Mr. Murdoch, to read it to your grandchildren. They will get it.