Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Sec. Duncan's attempt to silence, intimidate Common Core critics was a miserable failure

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Sec. Duncan's attempt to silence, intimidate Common Core critics was a miserable failure:

Sec. Duncan's attempt to silence, intimidate Common Core critics was a miserable failure

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary.”

Duncan's racist and chauvinistic swipe at "white suburban moms" for their opposition to Common Core, likely got him a spanking from Axelrod and Plouffe and Hillary Clinton's people. After all, it's her 2016 campaign that will be hearing the echo of Duncan's remarks as Republicans work to separate her from her strongest base of support.

His phony act of contrition that followed, only made matters worse. The “white suburban moms” remark was first reported Friday by Politico, which later reported that Duncan back-peddled, saying that he “didn’t say it perfectly.” You can read his official "apology" for "clumsy phrasing" on the D.O.E. website.

It's actually not an apology at all. As Diane Ravitch put it, "Arne Duncan made the grievous