Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Daniels says children need to "sit down and hush up"

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel's "State of the State" speech included this zinger:

"It is time Indiana said to its children, 'Sit down and hush up.' To their parents, 'If your child is causing trouble and harming some other student's education, take it up with your kid, and not the teacher or principal.' And to the lawyers, 'Butt out.' "

Here's the transcript. If you don't want to wade through endless text, Matthew Tully provides a cheat sheet.

One oddity Tully picked up on (Ea):

As he often does, Daniels emphasized how much better Indiana is faring than other states. That's fair. Still, it's hard to understand why he chose to take unprovoked shots at other states.

"That's Cincinnati, as in Ohio, with its $7 billion deficit and downgraded credit rating, begging Washington for a massive handout. That's Chicago, as in Illinois, a perennial ethical embarrassment where the government is floating billions in suspect paper just to pay its bills."

The governor apparently was trying to boost Indiana by bashing other states. But as he delivered those lines, I thought to myself, "Why?" Why is the governor picking fights with his own state's neighbors? Doesn't he realize how aligned key parts of Indiana are with Chicago and Cincinnati?

If Daniels does run for President in 2012, it's doubtful the words will come back to haunt him, but he might have done better picking on Vermont or Connecticut.

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