DaveScot's Ignorant Question

Everyone's favorite ignorant blowhard, DaveScot, has aimed a question at me over at Dembski's home for wayward sycophants. I'll quote the whole question and then give the whole answer:

Ed Brayton in characteristic fashion dodges the real question. The new Dover school board was elected partly on a campaign promise to repeal the ID policy. Why didn't they? Over to you, Ed.

They did. At the very first meeting at which the new board was all present. Back to you, oh clueless one.

P.S. Anyone wanna start a pool on how long it'll take that post to be edited or removed?

Update: And sure enough, the question is now edited so at least it's coherent. Still ignorant, but coherent at least. He writes:

Well, Ed responded fairly quick saying they DID repeal it on January 4th. But this was *after* the judge ordered it. Ed, as usual, deliberately or stupidly misses the point. The question is why didn't the board repeal it on December 5th *before* Jones ruled on it. Back to you, Ed.

I've already answered that question. First, the new school board wasn't sworn in on December 5th, 2005. There was a dispute over the results in one district and a runoff election was being held. The full board was not sat until the January meeting. Second, the new board didn't have control of the agenda at that meeting, which was set by the previous school board. If you look at the minutes of the meeting, you'll see that they did exactly what you would expect to be done at the swearing in of a new board - they were sworn in, they elected their officers, they set the schedule for the rest of the year, they took some perfunctory votes on routine matters (accepting previous hirings of personnel, allowing an administrator to attend a conference, etc). There was nothing on the agenda for consideration of any policy questions, nor would one expect there to be.

They did open up the floor for public comment at one point and Napierskie suggested the repeal of the policy. The board did what one would expect the board to do, which is to place it on the agenda for the next month's meeting so that those who wanted to comment on it would have the chance. That is perfectly routine procedure in such a situation. The only ones who think it's in any way strange are wingnuts with an axe to grind.

And by the way, they weren't forced by the judge's ruling to repeal the policy. The judge did not order the repeal of the policy, he merely ordered that it not be enforced. They could have kept the policy on the books forever if they wanted to, they just couldn't have actually done what the policy recommends (which is why some states still had laws against miscegenation on the books decades after the Supreme Court struck them down; Alabama finally repealed theirs in 2000).

Even if the school board had never repealed the policy, the reality today would be exactly the same. And if they had repealed the policy on Dec. 5th, the reality today would be exactly the same. The outcome of the case had nothing whatsoever to do with what the new school board did or didn't do, which makes all of this less than a tempest in a teapot. It's a ridiculous, idiotic attempt to smear people with absolutely no evidence whatsoever by a desperate bunch of loonies trying frantically to spin a tale to cover up their own incompetence and the vacuousness of their position.

Oh, I almost forgot. Back to you, still clueless one.