A Fool and his Words are Soon Parted

Pundit Bondage and Misreading of the News January 10, 2006

I read a lot of headlines via RSS feeds without necessarily reading the stories, and this sometimes leads to comical results.

This morning, two feeds crossed my attention at once:

Bush: Test Scores Up Due to Education Law
Bush Predicts More Testing in Iraq in 2006

and then

New Stamps Feature Children’s Characters

The first one, I admit to reading with a sense of hope for our Commander-in-Chief. President Bush’s test scores went up? Who was testing him? Was this part of the “No President Left Behind” act?

The second snippet made me wonder what kind of testing we were doing in Iraq. I know it’s “hard work” over there, but were we planning on publishing how Iraqi children stack up with kids in Mississippi or Kentucky? Haven’t we tested them enough?

Then, I saw the third story. For this one, I actually saw a snippet of the story text, which suggested that “Fox in Socks” would be commemorated with a stamp. I pictured a stamp of a long line of political pundits proudly showing off their socks.

If the details of the pundit fantasies ever surface, perhaps “Fox in Stocks” will be a more appropriate picture.