ABSOLUTELY NUTS

The New York Times has once again come through for me. It has an editorial today so full of craziness, I have to believe it was written as kind of a parody. It’s all about poor Washington, DC. It starts off with this:

“The 500,000 people who live in Washington, D.C., are accustomed to being humiliated by Congress, which dictates everything from how the city spends its tax dollars to how it collects the garbage — while denying Washingtonians a vote in the body that runs their affairs.”

But do they tell you why? No. It’s because DC is supposed to be the seat of government and the Congress doesn’t want the city to be held hostage by a State looking for favors from the Federal Government. Or do they mention every time Congress gives the city some autonomy, DC is incapable of taking care of itself. Remember the crack-smoking mayor?

Next paragraph we get this:

“Thanks to this dictatorial oversight, the District of Columbia is the only city in the country that is barred by Congress from spending locally raised tax dollars to provide abortions for impoverished women.”

Oh, boy. What the times doesn’t mention is DC hospitals already perform 960 or so abortions for every 1,000 births. No, I’m not making that up; the hospitals can barely keep ahead of the carnage.

Next paragraph:

“This year, Congress is trying to force the city to send about 1,300 public school children to private, mainly parochial, schools at public expense over the objections of the school board and a majority of the city's elected officials, including Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's nonvoting representative in the House.”

The Times fails to mention that the voucher program is traditionally supported by the people who actually have kids in the school system. Doesn’t it make more sense to be on the side of the parents instead of Eleanor Holmes Norton and her cronies?

How about this doozy?

“This proposal is antidemocratic, but its faults run deeper.”

The Times never explains exactly how parents having the choice of what school to send their kids to is antidemocratic, but did you really expect them too?

Finally,

“This proposal sends the wrong message by funneling public money to private schools at a time when public schools are broke. It also brings attention to the fact that the Bush administration has failed to finance fully its vaunted public school initiative, No Child Left Behind, which was supposed to remake public education but is rapidly becoming just so much window dressing.”

Broke? Washington, DC currently spends more than $11,500 per student, the highest in the country and one and a half times more than the national average. Oh, and they score the lowest on SAT scores, too.

Thank you, New York Times editorial board, your insanity keeps trouble makers like me busy. Too bad many people think YOU are the sane ones.