Thursday, December 04, 2008

I Thought Obama Had Good Vetters

The buzz this morning is that Graham is "in the mix" of individuals under consideration for the position of Secretary of Education in the Obama administration. This was first reported by Marc Ambinder on his Atlantic Monthly blog; the story  was picked up and expanded on by the Collegian this morning.

Frankly, I'm of two minds about the possibility. One part of me is screaming, "Yes, yes, yes, let's get this anti-intellectual corporate buffoon out of Old Main." The other part is saying, "Hold on a minute, do you want him to screw up the entire US educational system?"

Of course, this story is sourced to  anonymous Democrats which means that it must be taken with a grain of salt. My guess is that this rumor is the result of Graham doing the two thing he does well, manipulate the press to boost his reputation and use his connections to climb.

He may have even used Senator Casey's (D-PA) close ties to Obama to get short listed for the job, after all he has managed to climb to other prominent positions based on his  connections rather on of his limited abilities. He chaired of the Kellogg Commission on the future of Land-Grant Universities. William Richardson president of the Kellogg Foundation at the time is a former Penn State Provost. He co-chaired a RIAA joint committee on education and entertainment. Barry Robinson, the General Counsel for the RIAA, was a Penn State Trustee at the time. He chaired the AAU. The previous chair was the president of Northwestern, Graham's doctoral alma mater.

I guess we'll have to wait to see what happens.

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