Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
It looks like Texas Gov. Rick Perry is preparing to take a giant step sideways. Blocked by the Senate from renaming Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education, it now appears that he's going to name fellow wingnut Cynthia Dunbar to lead the board. My friends at the Texas Freedom Network respond:
Look, we were under no illusions when the Texas Senate wisely rejected the confirmation of Don McLeroy as board chair in May. We knew Gov. Rick Perry would likely choose another member of the board's far-right faction as chair (even though there are other far more responsible conservative Republicans on the board). After all, the far-right faction represents his electoral base, which he will need in his re-election battle next year.But surely even the governor realizes that choosing an extremist like Dunbar would be almost inconceivably reckless and irresponsible. Dunbar has clearly expressed her loathing for public education in her book One Nation Under God, calling public schools "a subtle tool of perversion," "unconstitutional" and "tyrannical." She has also personally rejected the public school system, home-schooling her children. In fact, she wrote in her book that sending our children to public schools is "throwing them into the enemy's flames even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch."
Just before the November election, Dunbar also authored a vicious Internet rant in which she called Barack Obama a terrorist sympathizer who wants to seize total power by declaring martial law. In another Internet screed, she charged that Obama is promoting Marxism by calling for "shared sacrifice and social responsibility." (Not surprisingly, both essays have been removed from the Web sites that published them.)
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Politics
Comments
Is this appointment also subject to the advice and consent of the state Senate, or is this an interim appointment who gets to serve for a while before facing a vote?
Posted by: kehrsam | July 8, 2009 12:08 PM
It should come as no big surprise that David Barton campaigned for Dunbar and helped get her into office in the first place.
Posted by: Chris Rodda | July 8, 2009 12:18 PM
Wouldn't this be a major step backwards? The blocking of McLeroy was a step forward, the nomination of Dunbar would be a major step backwards. She is, if anything, more stupid than McLeroy, not only anti-science, but anti-history, and anti-constitutional.
McLeroy was bad enough with his assault on science, Dunbar adds an assault on the constitution, public education, and apparently seeks to elevate Barton to the status of legitimate historian.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | July 8, 2009 12:22 PM
If this nutbar gains the leadership position of the board, I may have to rethink being a social studies teacher in Texas. I may have to rethink living in Texas.
Posted by: Randallphobia | July 8, 2009 12:41 PM
It is an interim appointment. The Texas legislature meets only every two years. They just finished their 2009 session, and they will not meet again until January, 2011.
Perry is probably considering Dunbar's appointment partly as a way to get back at the reality-based crowd and partly as a way to lock in his support amongst the fundamentalists against Kay Bailey Hutchinson in the upcoming Republican gubernatorial primary. I suppose he also thinks this will burnish his extreme conservative credentials when he runs for national office.
I really hope that this next time when we Texas tell the rest of the country not to vote for one of our former governors, y'all will listen.
Posted by: Tex | July 8, 2009 1:20 PM
To serve in office, most constituencies require their representatives to be part of the constituency. Residency requirement vary but almost universally exist. Shouldn't a member of the school board be required to have their kids in public school? Or if no school age kids exist, at least support public education?
Dunbar is beyond caring or redemption but Perry ought to have more sense and the people of Texas need to let him know that they value public education. Assuming they do of course.
Posted by: MikeMa | July 8, 2009 1:22 PM
I would be interested to hear how Dunbar would justify taking a leadership position in the public school system if she considers its very existence to be unconstitutional.
Posted by: Gretchen | July 8, 2009 1:55 PM
I really hope that this next time when we Texas tell the rest of the country not to vote for one of our former governors, y'all will listen.
If it makes you feel any better, the majority of us didn't vote for him the first time around, and a significant minority of us didn't vote for him the second time around either...
No, didn't make me feel better either...*sigh*
Posted by: dogmeatIB | July 8, 2009 2:02 PM
Of that, I have no doubt. It is exactly what he is doing. Perry is very much like Bush in that while there is little doubt he is a conservative Christian, I don't think he's as insane as the Texas GOP party activists he needs to win the primary next year.
Of course, cynically throwing the future of Texas children under the bus to save your own political skin is, if anything, more contemptible than doing it through willful ignorance (though it's a close run thing).
Posted by: tacitus | July 8, 2009 2:21 PM
I have something to say about Texas. Anyone who live here understands the nexus between the police and racism. The Houston Chronicle has banned me from speaking openly about this issue so I bring it here. My crime was that I suggested tearing down the door of city hall would be the proper response to police violence against innocents. I do not and did not advocate violence, nor did I incite any person to act upon my views. I merely expressed them as I express them here.
Tearing down the door of city hall is a non violent act. Criminal mischief I believe, perhaps a serious one, but a misdemeanor. Compare that misdemeanor to shooting down an innocent African American youth on his own front lawn. The facts are out there on this case — Robbie Tolan, shot with a military style .45 pistol (not the less deadly .40 deemed sufficiently lethal by most LOEs) by former MP, and night duty officer, a white man, one Seargent Cotton who has since been indicted in April on charges of aggravated assault. Tolan, who is son of a professional baseball player, enjoyed an upper middle class lifestyle and was driving a nice car with a friend on New Years Eve, having made a run to a fast food place after midnight for a snack. The officer who noticed Tolan perceived he was of a darker hue than anyone on the block and pulled him over, claiming to have run his license plate and that the car erroneously came up stolen. A verbal discussion occurred and Sgt Cotton was called in as backup while the LOEs held Tolan on his own front lawn. Terrified his mother and father came out and his mother, protesting the obvious mistake by the white officers, was pushed by Cotton against the garage. Tolan, who had been forced to lie on the ground like a dog, found this intolerable as anyone would, and rose up. Sgt. Cotton fired three rounds, striking Tolan once and piercing his lung and liver with the military caliber bullet, which remains lodged there to this day. Fearing for his life Tolan was not able to return home even after his painful recovery in the hosptial. Bellaire city manager Bernie Satterwhite never apologized, and defended Cotton even amid huge public fury and outrage at an incident of clear racial profiling. Even once indicted by a grand jury the city of Bellaire insists it did the right thing by gunning down a man whose only crime was driving (home) while black. Anecdotally I can tell you that a disproportionate number of minority drivers are stopped in Bellaire, compared to the local, predominately white, population.
Now I ask you, as a sensible person, do you or do you not agree that in this case the proper response is to mobilize the African American community and all those concerned and tear down the front door of City Hall?
Posted by: beholder | July 8, 2009 2:24 PM
This just adds one more example to the theory that modern conservatives are terrible at governing precisely because of their contempt for government.
Who it their right mind would put a woman who considers public schools tyrannical and unconstitutional in charge of the Board of Education? Whatever problems there may be with the school system (and there are many) putting a person with this kind of mindset in charge is sure to not solve any of them. Nepotism is for your press secretary, if the Bush years taught anybody anything, its that if someone has actual responsibilities you take at a look at some resumes before hiring that college buddy of yous.
Posted by: random guy | July 8, 2009 3:18 PM
Modern conservatives, like modern liberals, typically only have contempt for government when they're not in control of it.
Posted by: Gretchen | July 8, 2009 3:22 PM
@12: Um ... no, wrong on both counts.
Modern liberals have not expressed contempt for government that I can recall. Modern liberals have expressed contempt for people in government (eg, Bush), but that is not the same thing at all as contempt in government.
Meanwhile, modern conservatives - going back nearly 30 years now - have expressed contempt for government while controlling it.
Remember Regan's "joke"?
If the GOP was just expressing contempt of Obama, that would be one thing. But they, as exemplified by Cynthia Dunbar, declare that government itself is illegitimate and incompetant. Not just the people in it.
Posted by: Michael Ralston | July 8, 2009 4:09 PM
I can see Gretchen's point, because there are a surprising number of liberals who think government is a problem, particularly if they are single-issue voters (the left wing of the environmental movement comes to mind). But, yes, that whole social contract and consent of the governed thing implies liberalism in general.
Posted by: kehrsam | July 8, 2009 4:26 PM
Oh, pardon-- I wasn't clear enough. A person who has contempt for government in general is an anarchist (or at least a libertarian). Conservatives may say they have contempt for government, but in modern conservatives that is clearly a lie, as every conservative who goes into office seems to try and increase its power as much or more than any liberal.
Posted by: Gretchen | July 8, 2009 9:22 PM
We might not have to worry about former Texas governor's on the national stage is Texans would unelect them by recall.
Posted by: democommie | July 9, 2009 6:55 AM
@democommie, #16 I do not understand your point, could you rephrase it? Cheers
Posted by: DPSisler | July 9, 2009 7:53 AM
Check out Fred's observations about Dunbar over on Slactivist
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/
Dunbar aims well to the right of sane on public schools because, like other christianists and dominionists, she believes the schools should be religious institutions. It's not so simple that she hates public schools or wants them destroyed; she hearkens to a good old day when public schools were religious in nature (and, no doubt, segregated racially too.) She would be satisfied by public schools that included all the trappings of religion that we have worked so hard to remove, such as bad science instruction, preferential treatment for christian organizations like FCA, religion-infused ceremonies, and pre-game prayers. She's grandstanding for her clientele, which, even in Texas, is shrinking. The real humor is that she doesn't know that.
The political tactic is to stand far to the right and encourage ad hominem--or ad moronem, in this case--attacks, and to use those to strengthen her position and press her cases. Even in Texas the momentum is against her; she's a figurehead Perry has offered to the far right loons to lionize (and us to revile) while the real work swirls around. It's more of the strategy of politics rather than the trouble of governing. To me, time spent abusing Dunbar, though fun, is wasted time. It's the politicians (both sides) too cowardly to stop this process of sop politics that infuriate me.
Dunbar's political style seems brazen and a tad scary, but it shouldn't. If the fundamental approach of conservatives (as discussed above) contains contempt for government, it also contains unsophisticated and often just plain stupid politics. Dunbar and company, including GWB, still think that deep down people want what they're selling--hence the wink-n-nod speeches and startlingly frank idiocy they spout. Dunbar, despite a law degree and prominent positions, still represents a small, homogeneous community that is constantly surprised by the way the rest of us think and act. All of the things that make Dunbar scary from a distance are also sharp evidence of the collapse of the far far right wing of their party. Let it burn!
We talked here lately about the question "what church do you go to?" and how that question seemed invasive, pushy, etc. I have had it many times but rarely found it so. It's naive, is all. As a kid I found it scary, evidence that I was alone in my skepticism and that they were going to come and take me off to a FEMA camp. But now I see that many people think as I do, and the rest are mainly polite and sophisticated enough to inquire about that potential connection more politely. The few who still imagine that question to be polite deserve friendly engagement, other-cheek-turning, and patience. Oddly, I feel the same about Dunbar. We support her ethos when we attack her bitterly.
Finally, as a school teacher with a proud history of conflict with authority, I believe that the real friction will be on the administration/staff level in schools. School boards tend to make themselves irrelevant anyhow; on the teacher-level schools tend to work for kids regardless of what the state board says. The board is a political figurehead. The argument that Dunbar will hurt kids is true only in the broadest abstract, and her intolerance is probably less damaging than, say, the underfunding of schools or the continued tendency of districts to solve funding issues by increasing class size.
She sure is fun to talk about, though.
ice9
Posted by: ice9 | July 9, 2009 8:44 AM
Any Texas Democrat worth their cowboy hat will be attacking the real source of the problem: Rick Perry. This is the clown that Bill Maher railed about in an excellent "New Rules" a few weeks ago.
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | July 9, 2009 10:19 AM
Gov. Perry today appointed Gail Lowe to head the State Board of Education. Mrs. Lowe is a resident of Lampasas, has served on the local school board and all three of her children attended the public school in Lampasas.
Have to admit the choice surprised me. Mrs. Lowe seems to be one of the eight relatively rational members of the school board with a real concern for the education of students of Texas. And not just their religious education.
So . . . what's Goodhair's plan here?
Posted by: John Davis | July 10, 2009 8:55 PM