"It's Time To Put Politics Aside" And Do Bloomberg's Bidding
"Department of Education spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz wouldn't comment on the legal questions raised by the parents and politicians, but said, 'It's time to put politics aside and recognize that it's in all our kids' interest for Cathie Black to succeed as our next Chancellor.'"
—Natalie Ravitz! You are really being grotesque while doing your job! That is the least enlightening, most inexplicably insulting, most negative positioning you could possibly establish for the Department of Education's defense of Cathie Black. Somehow this statement manages to be simultaneously outrageous, dismissive, obscuring and just plain dim. Most likely you are being praised over a lunch right now though. But honestly? Dismissing objections to the heavy-handed installation of Cathie Black as NYC schools honcho as POLITICS? When the appointment itself is a not-really obscured bit of politics? (One that is intended to move the public education system closer towards privatization?) I know you probably learned this successfully climbing the ladder in Barbara Boxer's office but, honestly, when working in New York City administration, try not to use absurd election-year misdirection tactics (as has become your habit). It's gross, hostile and divisive.
Yes but for ass hattery of the week I nominate this:
"Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) said a decision to split the job, as Chicago has, is likely to be challenged by the courts. And the theory that it takes a great manager to be schools chancellor, he said, is wildly exaggerated.
'Joe Torre is a great manager but Joe Torre would not make a great schools chancellor,' he said."
Also, I can say from experience that many of Bloomberg's people think they are (or at least claim to be, and I believe them to be sincere) above politics, even though they are, um, in the business of politics. This much I will grant–they don't seem to understand Albany politics so well.
I don't have any kids and I don't like kids
It's really quite simple: "politics" has become so devalued (for any number of quite legitimate reasons) that it pretty much only exists in discourse as an attack word, and will eventually lose virtually all of its original meaning and simply come to denote evil plotting. My opponent has political machinations; I'm just trying to implement best practices, etc.
This applies double to people like Bloomberg and his circle who probably quite honestly view themselves as "apolitical," in the sense that they're not engaging in traditional left-right mudslinging. They're just exercising power for everyone's benefit, not engaging in "politics."
Term "limits."
i'm not sure where the need to decry ravitz in such strong terms (and post her picture) comes from other than the obvious displeasure at being on the losing side of the waiver argument. there's nothing particularly unusual or surprising about accusing opponents of playing politics. (it's sort of like accusing a competitor of chasing pageviews.)
You're clearer than most about who won and who lost on the waiver argument. Maybe you also have some stock picks for us.