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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Oeconomicus who wrote (78185)3/8/2010 4:57:01 PM
From: longnshort  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 90947
 
here's the tape
Dan Rather: ‘Articulate’ Obama Couldn’t Even ‘Sell Watermelons’

breitbart.tv

"He couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."



To: Oeconomicus who wrote (78185)3/9/2010 3:41:20 PM
From: Sully-  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 90947
 
Who Writes Your Kids’ Textbooks?

by: Shannon Bream
March 9, 2010 - 12:04 PM

As the Texas textbook debate begins in earnest, odds are most American parents likely have no idea how their children's books are actually crafted. The 15 members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) will make key decisions about curriculum - what's in, what's out - and textbook publishers will write books to match those standards. That's because Texas is one of the largest textbook buyers in the world.

Dr. Frank Wang, one-time president of Saxon Publishing, says the process of producing a textbook has changed a great deal over the years. Historians and authors are increasingly being replaced by a collage of freelance writers, hoping to quickly churn out a project that will match up with curriculum standards. "The process has evolved from art to engineering," Wang says. He adds that it's become more of an "assembly line" system, rather than a carefully crafted "work of art."

Gilbert T. Sewall, Director of the American Textbook Council, believes textbooks that end up in classrooms around the country have been steadily getting worse. "There's no doubt that identity politics have contributed to the decline of textbook quality over the last twenty years," says Sewall.
He warns that vocal groups from gender activists to nutritionists have "demanded" their way into curriculum, simply by being the most vocal. Sewall says an editor at a top publishing company told him years ago that the squeaky wheel gets the attention and, "What was true then is even more true today." In Sewall's estimation what he calls "the Christian right" has been most persuasive in recent battles in Texas.

liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com



To: Oeconomicus who wrote (78185)3/9/2010 4:47:34 PM
From: Sully-  Respond to of 90947
 
Dan Rather says 'Articulate' Obama 'couldn't even sell watermelons'

By: Mark Hemingway
Commentary Staff Writer
03/08/10 3:40 PM EST

I'm not exactly a fan of the PC police, but it looks like Gunga Dan should have been a tad more thoughtful here:

DAN RATHER: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama's leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. "Listen he just hasn't been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death." And a version of, "Listen he's a nice person, he's very articulate" this is what's been used against him, "but he couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."

For the record, I don't think that remark was racially charged so much as just another one of Rather's annoyingly affected Texas aphorisms run amok. Lucky for Dan he's not Republican or conservative or else people would really be sharpening their pitchforks about now. In Rather's case he might just get off the hook with a beer summit. That kind of exposure would really help his career.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com