School Violence, Mark Foley and the Bush Administration

Already there has been much discussion around the country and around the blogosphere about the President's Summit on School Violence taking place outside of Washington, DC. However, these kinds of stories simply annoy me to no end. The problem with trying to draw a line between school violence, Bush Administration scheduling and other matters is that it illustrates two things:

1. The no matter what the Bush Administration does, positive or negative about any issue, a too large a population will see conspiracies behind it.
2. The most people cannot see beyond the nose on their face about issues that affect our children.

First, summits like the school violence summit don't just "appear" on the President's schedule; it takes a while to put together these kinds of events so in all likelihood, this event had been someone's idea for a while, but recent events moved it up in priority.

Second, had the most recent, high-profile school shooting not happened in Amish country and involved the execution style killing of little girls, I doubt most people would even think twice about "another school shooting" including the conspiracy theorists who think anything bad that happens is the work of the Bush Administration trying to manipulate America. Had this event happened in some inner city neighborhood elementary school, the event might have been a one day news story and that is it, even the most liberal media outlets would have let the story die and no one outside of that small community would have cared.

Third, Mark Foley is not likely to be the disaster for the Republican party that most lefties believe it will be. One of the messages coming out of the conservative community and even the moderate community is that most people see the problem as a Mark Foley problem, not a Republican problem. The issue may be highlighting the foibles of the Hastert speakership, but it probably won't be the disaster Dems hope it will be because they have to be careful not to get splattered either. The school violence summit is not a cover-up for Mark Foley nor an issue designed simply to get more votes.

To be sure, school violence is a problem and one that should not be taken lightly. However, looking for connectins between Administration actions and events like these simply perpetuates and exacerbates the divisions in this nation and we simply don't need to pursue further divisions.