Sunday links.

The Republican Party in Florida is a lot like the one in Illinois. It is dominated by right-wing ideologues and Bushies who will probably nominate the Jeb Bush mini-me, Marco Rubio. But polls show that following his veto of the anti-teacher SB 6 this week, Republican Governor Charlie Crist could win a three-way in November as an independent. Speaking to teachers the other day Crist said, “It is the voice of the people that was heard this week, and that’s what’s so important in this country. The most important thing is to do things right for the right reasons. Vetoing this legislation today was about trying to do what’s right.”

Featuring an article titled, Republicans and Educators on the Same Page for ESEA Reform in NEA Today, the usually pro-Democratic Party NEA is clearly sending a message to Arne and the Obama administration. Don’t ya think?

Saying goodbye to a teacher.

It’s always a good day when wing-nut Fred Hess of the American Enterprise Institute is unhappy.

A student at the University of Wyoming wanted to hear the invited speaker. But the University of Wyoming said the student couldn’t. That’s no way for a university to behave, so the student is suing.

“It’s Not About Race” declared a headline on a typical column defending over-the-top “Obamacare” opponents from critics like me, who had the nerve to suggest a possible racial motive in the rage aimed at the likes of Lewis and Cleaver — neither of whom were major players in the Democrats’ health care campaign. It’s also mistaken, it seems, for anyone to posit that race might be animating anti-Obama hotheads like those who packed assault weapons at presidential town hall meetings on health care last summer. And surely it is outrageous for anyone to argue that conservative leaders are enabling such extremism by remaining silent or egging it on with cries of “Reload!” to pander to the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base. As Beck has said, it’s Obama who is the real racist.

I would be more than happy to stand corrected. But the story of race and the right did not, alas, end with the health care bill. Hardly had we been told that all that ugliness was a fantasy than we learned back in the material world that the new Republican governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, had issued a state proclamation celebrating April as Confederate History Month. Frank Rich

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