[Vision2020] Not All Luna's Inflated Claims Were in His Résumé

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (December 16, 2006) Lewiston Tribune -

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J.F. - Not all Luna's inflated claims were in his résumé
Jim Fisher

Tom Luna's exaggeration of his work for the federal government should come
as little surprise to Idahoans who have been paying attention to state
politics. The question is how many voters were paying attention before they
elected him state school superintendent. 

Luna's campaigns both in 2002 and this year were based on a fraudulent
premise: that education is too important to be left to professional
educators and therefore an unqualified superintendent would be better than
one with a background in teaching and school administration. 

That premise did not come from Luna alone, however. Although he filed for
the race four years ago before receiving the required college degree from an
online university, the state's Republican leaders lined up to support him.
In that campaign, he promised to shake up what he called the inadequate
status quo represented by former Moscow principal Marilyn Howard, the
Democratic incumbent. He also called for more charter schools and for
tax-paid vouchers to private schools. 

After Luna lost to Howard, Republicans found him a parking place in the Bush
administration's Department of Education. He later misrepresented how he
received that position, and what it entailed. 

Because he did, his bogus claims were repeated by others. Last year, in a
Turnabout response to a Lewiston Tribune editorial, former Gov. Phil Batt
asserted that Luna "was appointed by President Bush as a senior adviser to
the U.S. secretary of education." In truth, the Associated Press reports, it
was Education Secretary Rod Paige who appointed Luna, not as a senior
adviser to him but as a "special assistant" to Paige's undersecretary. 

Luna apparently overstated other ties to Bush as well. He says he attended
several meetings with the president in the White House, accompanying either
Paige or Deputy Secretary Bill Hansen, his own supervisor. Hansen says he
doesn't recall even one meeting with the president at which Luna was
present. 

Hundreds of the Idaho public school teachers whom Luna will oversee in a few
weeks are accustomed to hearing such claims, from students who seek to
magnify their own importance. Experienced teachers know, however, that most
of those students will outgrow their need to fudge the truth. Now, they also
know that their new state superintendent did not.

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So, let's take a quick glance at the Idaho Republicans' trifecta:

Governor-elect "Butch" Otter - Dredged an Idaho river for personal reasons
and in violation of state laws.

Congressman-elect Bill Sali - A sock puppet for New York realtors, who also
believes trees are 40% crude oil which strongly implies "harvest time" for
Idaho's wilderness region.
http://www.tomandrodna.com/Stuff/Sali_Tree_Energy.mp3

Superintendent-elect Tom Luna - Lied on his resume' while campaigning for
public office.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"Must we continue to patronize these maladjusted freaks who would pervert
society to reflect their own warped perspectives?" 

- Tony "ToeKnee" Simpson (October 20, 2006)

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