(Guest post by Greg Forster)
This morning, Pajamas Media carries my column on the selection of Arne Duncan as Obama’s education secretary. At first, I agreed with Jay’s assessment that the choice is a boring subject, but after thinking about how boring it is, I now find it fascinating:
It really is amazing how totally uninteresting — how completely devoid of any possible justification for paying attention to it — the choice of Duncan for education secretary is. In fact, the selection has succeeded in fascinating me by achieving such an unprecedented level of anti-fascinatingness. It repels my interest so strongly that I can’t stop thinking about it.
Not that this means I’m wowed by the pick:
If Duncan is acceptable to everybody, that’s another way of saying he’s the lowest common denominator. And as a great education reformer once said: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you.”
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
sorry guys — I can’t come along with your “this is boring” claims. Yes, the federal role in education is less than many think it is, but it is still substantial and has been growing. Reauthorization of NCLB is coming up in only a matter of months, and the direction of that law matters. Plus, we have had so little to go on about what Obama wants to do about education that each bit of information is very useful. Before Duncan was selected it seemed equally plausible that the choice could be Linda Darling Hammond or Joel Klein — that’s quite a gap in styles. Now that he’s made a pick we have a better idea where things will be headed in the next couple of months/years. The next interesting selection will be the head of IES —
I don’t think we disagree very much, Marcus. I agree that the federal role of education is important – some of my previous PJM columns have argued that case.
Before the Duncan pick came out, the subject of who would be picked was boring – not because the position was unimportant, but because all the speculation about who would be picked had no basis and served no purpose, yet it wouldn’t stop. Time wasted on useless speculation is time that could have been spent on more useful discussion. If you can’t effect the outcome of something, there’s nothing to do but wait and see how it goes.
Now, after the pick, I agree that the subject is interesting, and it’s interesting because we now have an important piece of information about Obama’s plans. But what’s so interesting about the pick is that it appears Obama plans to fly completely under the radar and do nothing on education; in other words, it’s interesting because it tends to show that nothing interesting is going to happen on education for four years. It’s interesting because it’s boring.