At Truthdig, the good E.J. Dionne raises his head in a column, "Can't We All Just Get Along? No", which begins thus:
The word partisanship is typically accompanied by the word mindless. That's not simply insulting to partisans; it's also untrue.
If we learn nothing else in 2010, can we please finally acknowledge that our partisan divisions are about authentic principles that lead to very different approaches to governing?
Amen to that. But what about the flip side? If partisanship actually reflects real differences in ideas, how much does bi-partisanship reflect a mindless approach that ignores not just ideas, but reality itself? (Including, of course, the mindless use of the term "mindless partisanship.") Take, for example, the mindless bipartisan approach to education, exhibited by Obama's support for firing all the teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, which Jeff is going to be writing about 4 PM.
The bottom-line reason given for the firing in many news reports was a 48% graduation rate. Now, that rate is nothing to be proud of--even though it would have been quite respectable for the "Greatest Generation", which sent a lot of high school dropouts off to war. But 48% is still almost halfway to perfection. Contrast that with the violent crime rate for Oakland, California, 1917.8 per 100,000 in 2007 (the most recent year for which statistics are available in the DOJ online database). You'd have to double their performance (cut their violent crime rate in half) eleven times before you'd get close to perfection, a violent crime rate of less than 1 per 100,000.
Obviously, the entire Oakland Police Department should be fired. No other conclusion is possible. It's a no-brainer.
But why stop with Oakland?
The safest community in California is Laguna Woods, and it's violent crime rate is 16.4 per 100,000. You'd have double their police performance four times to get close to a violent crime rate of 1 per 100,000 and five times to get under 1 per 100,000. If perfection's your measure (and why shouldn't it be?) then the Laguna Woods police are spectacularly worse than the Central Falls High faculty and staff.
The conclusion is obvious: Every police department in America should be fired en masse.
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