Tea, and sympathy

Even I think this stuff is BS

Some people understand the Crown Prince's fixation with education, Common Core, specifically.  It makes a lot of crony government contractors, like Ignite! Learning rich. And JEB! and the GOP establishment are trying to do with Common Core what they are trying to do with immigration. Falsely identify JEB! with progressive reform.

It works this way.  When it comes to immigration, JEB! and the business establishment's desire for a source of cheap, easily intimidated labor with no citizenship rights, or much hope for any such rights, somehow becomes mutated into unquestionable compassion for "guest workers," and to question this sort of "compassion" perversely get's you labeled by JEB!, Rove, and their media allies, as racist and xenophobic along with all the actual racists and xenophobes that Bushes past, and Rove, have relied for years to win elections for them. "Progressive" outlets like PMSNBC take this bait.

The same Orwellian scam is at work with education, and Common Core.  To question the dubious, self-serving version of education reform advocated by JEB! that enriches his brother Neil and other family cronies is defined by them as a blanket attack on genuine national standards, with the elite-created tea party conveniently available to use as a false flag example of mindless, irrational reaction.

Differing versions of a recent article about the tea party's hatred of JEB!'s Common Core advocacy illustrates this point well.  Reader comments in the Newmax version focus on the negative aspects, with nuggets like:

"Jeb is hoping for... nay... RELYING upon the abject stupidity of the American people in order to pull off this unimaginable fraud.  Most people do not understand that "Common Core" is a system designed NOT for the sake of education .. but for fattening the coffers of the companies who sell the tests."

The establishment-friendly Bloomberg version draws in straw man propaganda gems like:

"It is unbelievable that anyone would actually protest against having educational standards and opportunities for obtaining them due to hatred of even minimal government standards. While most of the rest of the civilized world is seeking to improve education for their children, some Americans, not unlike Islamists who abhor and prevent "Western Education" and prefer living in the stone age, are now campaigning against improving education for Americans. One can only guess what kind of "education", presumably not unlike that of the Islamists ,that the tea party would prefer."

It's a creaky strategy on the part of JEB! and Rove, but its about all they are left with.