HMM, YEAH THAT DID SOUND FISHY

I have been amused -- annoyed too, but amused -- by Dubya's recent crusade (and I know he likes that word) against the admissions policy at the University of Michigan, which does, indeed, take race into account. If Bush wants to look for examples of affirmative action (as well as people who dissent from his opinion), he need look to further than his own administration. Both Colin Powell and Condi Rice have been on TV the last couple days, saying that race should be considered as a factor in college admissions. This after the adminstration tried to parade Rice around as in full agreement with Bush.

Anyway, over the past week I've heard a figure presented by a number of pundits, conservatives, opponents of affirmative action, and people in the administration itself. In a nutshell, they talk about the UM admissions criteria system, which awards points for various attributes an applicant might have. The stat that these folks bleat about (Bush included) is that while UM gives 20 points for race/socio-economic disadvantage, it only awards 12 points for a perfect score on the SAT1.

Hmm, the way they make it sounds, seems like UM cares more about racial/socio-economic background than a stupid fill-in-bubble test, right? Here's where the spin comes in: A number of conservative pundits have spun this stat to say that UM admissions policy values race above academic achievement as a whole.

Ok, calling all high-school students and recent high-school students: Do you consider your SAT scores to be representative of your entire prepatory academic career?

I assume you said (take it away, Worf) "NO!" It's funny I should ask that, because neither does UM! For more, check out the Daily Howler, both today's and friday's (near the bottom).

I could go into wondering just how in the sam hell Dubya got into Yale (and the Texas Air National Guard, for that matter), but I'm sure you've done that in your head already, so I wont waste pixels here. Good day to you!