GOOD ANSWER
From an Education Week interview with Texas Gov. George W. Bush:

"Q. A lawsuit by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund went to trial this month. It claims that the state's 10th-grade exit exam discriminates against minorities. How do you respond?

"A. My response is that in order that every child learns and none gets left behind, we must measure. You can't fix unless you measure. I strongly disagree [with the lawsuit].

It's the soft bigotry of low expectations. And low expectations means don't measure. Let's just hope it happens. Let's hope they are learning. We are saying, we want to know. This is going to be a cornerstone of my presidential campaign. I want to know. I want to know."

That's a nice phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Let's hope we hear it again and again.

BUCHANAN: "A CONSERVATIVE NO MORE"
That's the title of the cover story in the next issue of National Review (October 11), about the "tribal politics of Pat Buchanan." Some quotes from the article: "Buchanan almost never talks about cutting government any more. . . . This is not the conservatism of Ronald Reagan, or Barry Goldwater, or William F. Buckley Jr. It is not even, as is so often incorrectly said, a revival of Robert Taft Republicanism: Taft didn't play to the union halls, and Medicare would have horrified him. . . . His campaign will simply demonstrate further the impossibility of his politics in modern America. This is true almost regardless of the final tally." For the full story, please visit http://www.nationalreview.com/11oct99/ponnuru101199.html.