Quote of the Day

From The Economist's "Fireside chat" podcast for March 13:

But Obama has a long history of saying the right things and not necessarily delivering on them.

It's at about the 4:50 mark:

They were talking specifically about Obama's education speech and his remarks in favor of merit pay and getting rid of bad teachers - concepts I strongly favor, but doubt Obama will actually come through on.

This discrepancy between Obama's rhetoric and action is rapidly becoming one of my top annoyances with him. Pass a nearly trillion dollar stimulus package that won't work, then hold a "fiscal discipline" summit. Talk on the campaign trail about cutting wasteful spending in Washington, then stand behind a budget with 9,000 earmarks. Talk about removing "ideology" from science in an embryonic stem cell move that was clearly all about ideology, not science.

I'm glad Obama favors merit pay, the ability for bad teachers to be fired, etc. And I really do hope he'll stand up the NEA teachers union to get these things implemented. (Unlikely, but even better, would be to move education back down to individual states and let states take care of this, but I digress.) But, I have absolutely no confidence he'll do so.