Strange things happening in politics these days: Rush Limbaugh hammering away hatefully at the soon to be crowned Republican presidential candidate John McCain; Ann Coulter, who has made a career out of childishly calling anyone not a card-carrying member of the John Birch Society stupid, saying she'll vote for Hillary Clinton rather than support McCain. And now, circumlocuting radio host Garrison Keillor, who over the past eight years has been one of the harshest critics of President Bush, is condemning Democrats (via Andy R. at Eduwonk) for failing to back one of the president's signature education programs.

I've always said that reporters often misunderstand the differences between Republicans and Democrats on education issues. On many issues, the usual alignments don't hold. Take the Reading First program, for example. Eight years ago Bush set aside $1 billion to help the lowest-achieving districts in each state use well-researched approaches to reading instruction. The program generated lots of controversy. Not because of the methods it supported but rather because advisors to the program seemed to benefit from it financially. Democrats in Congress saw it as a chance to hit Bush, even though independent evaluations said the program was achieving good results. So, they cut the budget by 70%, hurting not Bush but hundreds of thousands of children who were reading better because of it.

On Monday, Bush introduced his budget, which proposes to restore full funding for the program. It will be interesting to see this play out. Will Democrats really insist on cutting an effective reading program rather than address the real issues? Meanwhile, reporters will find a good story if they look into the Reading First program in their own state. What do the parents of children served by it, most of whom will be low-income and more likely to be Democrats, say? What about their teachers? (Also likely to be Democrats.) Here's one from the Birmingham (AL) News that identifies the state angle, although the reporter doesn't go out into the schools. Sometimes the usual political assumptions just don't hold.