Bush is right; we need an Education Governor. His name is Jim Doyle

Stuck in the car during George Bush's speech endorsing Mark Green, I was forced to listen on Republican Radio 620 rather than bask in his rhetorical splendor at the Hilton.

I almost choked when I heard this from Bush:

“I really believe that a governor has got to make education the number one priority of the state and Mark Green is going to do that."

Thanks to the Democratic Party, whose staff apparently was not on the freeway, I found this in my inbox soon after getting home:

REALITY: Mark Green’s last priority has been Wisconsin students.

-- Green stood with Bush and cast the deciding vote in February to slash student aid by more than $12 billion, the largest cut in the program’s history.

-- Green stood with Bush and voted against increases for Pell grants for our neediest students.

-- Green joined the Bush plan to cut education programs for working families to pay for huge corporate giveaways and tax cuts for the wealthiest, voting against additional funding for special education, reading, and math services for low-income students, and the Head Start program.

Not to mention the fact that Green's Republican cronies who run the legislature tried to decimate funding for Wisconsin's public schools in the last budget. Only a creative use of the veto by Gov. Jim Doyle kept the state's commitment to two-thirds funding of public schools, and restored about $400-million the Republicans had cut from education.

If George Bush really believes we need a governor who makes education his top priority, he should be supporting Jim Doyle.