As That Great Educational Mind Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Once Said, “This Is The Democracy, We Will Have No Pretext”

On the one hand, this is debatable:

If Cathie Black can’t get a waiver to become the city’s next schools chancellor, it’s going to be tough to attract anyone else of such stature to the high-pressure post, Mayor Bloomberg argued yesterday.

“How would you get somebody else?” the mayor asked. “I don’t know what you’d do if you didn’t [get the waiver] . . . I don’t know why anybody would come if you didn’t do this.[“]

On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter, does it?:

New York State’s top education official on Friday named an advisory panel of eight experts, at least half of them with strong connections to the Bloomberg administration, to help him decide whether to approve Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s controversial choice to run the city’s school system.

Three panelists selected by David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner, worked as senior officials at the city’s Department of Education.

One of those three now works at a foundation that was, for many years, the vehicle for Mr. Bloomberg’s personal charitable donations.

A fourth panelist is the head of a museum that has received almost half a million dollars from Mr. Bloomberg in donations since he took office.