So much for school reform

by Will on November 20, 2009

DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is now enmeshed in this incredibly lurid sex scandal.

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Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.

{ 10 comments }

1 Mark Thompson November 20, 2009 at 8:56 am

I’d say Rhee and the sex scandal part of that story are the least of it. Frankly, that’s a puzzling headline to use for a story in which Rhee’s involvement is only discussed in one or two sentences and appears pretty tangential. The rest of the story, if true, is a potentially major scandal on a national level. If true, the story pretty much has it all: sex, sports, politics, embezzlement, coverups, corruption, cronyism, illegal firings….all reaching from the lowest levels of local politics to the highest levels of national politics.

2 Will November 20, 2009 at 8:58 am

Tangential? She helped cover up her future fiancee’s sex scandal while he was holding a government job. That sounds pretty significant to me.

3 Mark Thompson November 20, 2009 at 9:11 am

The allegations against Rhee are the least specific in the report, and they only take up three sentences in the fairly lengthy story, most of which is dedicated to the allegations that KJ embezzled a boatload of money, managed to arrange an extremely shady deal regarding stimulus funds, leading to an IG asking some tough questions, then getting fired by the White House in violation of IG laws the very next day. Tangential to that story, you have KJ engaging in sexual harassment of Americorps volunteers, and covering it up, possibly with Rhee’s assistance (although the ability of a mere board member of a private non-profit to use that capacity to cover up a major sex scandal is fairly limited…board members are usually not very involved in the day-to-day operations of non-profits).

4 Kyle November 20, 2009 at 10:12 am

I agree with Mark on this, the headline says “Rhee does damage control,” but after what looks like a 15-1700 word article you couldn’t elucidate how or what she did to save your life.

Which makes this Class A controversy trolling journa-tainment but, in my mind, an unbalanced, misleading head for what the article ended up being.

5 sidereal November 20, 2009 at 1:07 pm: Along the same lines, I love the shout out to Johnson being a ‘prominent ally’ of Obama. So prominent I had no idea he was even alive since his playing days! No doubt by the time Fox is done with the story, Obama will have been smoking a cig in the living room while KJ was doing his groping.

6 Bob Cheeks November 20, 2009 at 10:17 am

Wasn’t Kevin a point guard?

7 sidereal November 20, 2009 at 1:10 pm

Also, I hope it doesn’t diminish the reprehensiveness of Johnson’s conduct to point out that I’m baffled as to what makes this ‘incredibly lurid’. I mean, there wasn’t even any scuba gear involved. Some douchebag tried to spoon with and feel up a female subordinate, which is pretty much the canonical sex scandal. Have we lost all standards for luridness?

8 Jaybird November 20, 2009 at 1:14 pm: Word. I was hoping for furries.
9 Will November 20, 2009 at 1:16 pm: Probably true. I guess I was thinking of the cover-up and ensuing scandal when I wrote “lurid.”

10 Scott November 22, 2009 at 11:27 am