Let the name-calling begin! Bring...it...on! Today, Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the NEA a "terrorist organization." Okay, if the teachers' union is a terrorist organization, what does that make Paige, who shamelessly cooked the books in Texas (and was somehow permitted to be a cabinet member)? Where I come from, it makes him a liar and a fraud.

And speaking of No Child Left Behind, one of the White House's great unfunded mandates, what about the fact that Bush, who ran as the "education president" and took credit for Texas's education reform, actually did everything in his power to block the reform? If you think that is outrageous, how about this? During the 2000 election, the news media didn't even bother to check Bush's record, or they would have ended up calling him a world-class liar about education. Which he is.

I have yet to hear of the NEA's committing random and unpredictable violence. But I know we have a president who not only can't pronounce the word "terrorism," but who also hasn't done anything to prevent it. I can sleep at night, knowing the NEA is nearby, but when I remember that I live in a country in which the executive branch wages unnecessary war and strips its citizens of civil liberties--then the nightmares begin.