MSM Notices Merkley's Shifting Rhetoric

The mainstream media has taken notice of U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Merkley's evolving position on the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Register-Guard reporter David Steves points out that Merkley's open letter last week calling for the "full-scale overhaul" of NCLB, and his charge at the University of Oregon that the law "needs to be thrown out," are different from the position he articulated just days before.

That seems to be a less kind and less gentle approach than the one Merkley took on Jan. 8, when he vowed in a press release to "Improve No Child Left Behind."

That same day, his chief Democratic rival, Steve Novick, called for the repeal of NCLB.

It's apparent that the Merkley camp figured out fairly quickly that Novick's bolder call to abolish the bad law was resonating better with voters than did Merkley's watered-down plan for a fix. So give Merkley credit for understanding the old maxim that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (or at least co-opt their ideas).

On a side note: I find this incident of Merkley "borrowing" Novick's rhetoric especially ironic, given the recent embarrassingly mismanaged attempt by blogger Senate Guru 2008 to paint Novick as a campaign copycat. Seems it's Merkley who's the more deserving target of the Guru's plagiarism scrutiny.