Cokie's Law and Education Reforminess
Randi Weingarten does a nice job taking down Won't Back Down, the reformy, fictional film that ignorant pundits are already using to push an anti-union agenda. I particularly liked what Weingarten has to say here:
The film features the union leader sharing a quote that anti-public education ideologues and right-wing politicians often attribute to former AFT president Albert Shanker: “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.” Despite the frequency with which corporate interests claim Shanker said this, a review of news reports, speeches, and interviews with Shanker’s aides and biographers, and even an analysis by the Washington Post, failed to find any person or report that could corroborate the statement. [emphasis mine]Digby calls this "Cokie's Law," named after uber-Washington insider and moral scold Cokie Roberts. See, kids, some time in the 1990's, this country's punditocracy lost its freaking mind and became obsessed with stains on
