If I seem off, it is because I am. My deadline for this column has changed from writing and editing it up to the 11th hour to the need to have it done by noon Wednesday. I keep thinking I will adjust, but so far every time I write something new it feels old by the time Sunday gets here.
And this truly is old news, but I am still thinking about it: our governor's response to the president's State of the Union address. That, coupled with what little was released about her LEARNS Act, took more of my energy and stole more of my peace, my joie de vivre, than I want to admit.
I keep looking for reasons to like Sarah Sanders. Some Democrat friends of mine think that is stupid. Perhaps more telling is that so do many of my Republican friends; the same ones who like Asa Hutchinson, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger; the ones whose heroes are people like Condoleezza Rice.
One of my friends is a preacher who respects Ronald Reagan so much he and his wife named their child Reagan. He feels completely abandoned by a Republican Party that would define itself as Sarah did in her SOTU response.
My take, and my concern, is much less about the party than the person. And the fact that this person represented our beloved state to the world in that speech makes me profoundly sad, when I wish with all my heart I could be proud of her as a fellow Christian, woman, and mother. Proud of my governor.
A lot has been written about the speech, even in this newspaper. Mike Masterson, in "Praise for Sarah," wrote he was worried about anyone who wasn't as proud as he was, gushing, "I don't know how any adult watching could have honestly believed she didn't do a great job."
In this case he should be very worried about me. The only way I could say she did a great job is if her job was to be as mean and divisive as possible while weaving in faith and family values. The fact that her smile was so forced brings a weird smidge of comfort. It is worse if such blessing and cursing comes out of the same mouth with a smooth, natural smile.
The LEARNS Act--though at this writing we've yet to see the bill itself--feels fraught with similar tension. Sanders gleefully announced that minimum teacher pay would increase from $36,000 to $50,000, taking Arkansas from one of the lowest to one of the highest paying states for beginning teachers.
What she didn't say is that the LEARNS Act also purports to remove incentives teachers currently have to stay in the profession, like the salary schedule with steps that reward years of service and the attainment of master's degrees.
She also didn't specify that it means while a new teacher will start at $50,000, which is good and right, a teacher who may have worked 15-20 years for less will now make the same as a beginner.
And for both, the only hope of ever making more is a bonus through "incentive pay" with categories to be more fully explained in the bill, one surmises, but that are not higher education or years of experience. Receiving this news after working so hard to get higher pay for teachers is like being hugged and then stabbed in the back by the hand that reached around to hug you.
It is a pattern. An oft-repeated line Sarah says to promote vouchers is that "families find themselves trapped in failing schools because they live in the wrong ZIP code." And then she goes on as if a voucher to some private school in another ZIP code will save them. Forget the fact there is no transportation provided; I suppose this still impresses some of her constituents.
But I want to know: What happens to the children left behind in that wrong ZIP code? Where is the will to make Arkansas schools great there? And in every ZIP code? Why is that not the focus of LEARNS? Are some ZIP codes not worth it? What exactly is a wrong ZIP code anyway? Is she not the governor of every ZIP code in Arkansas?
Perhaps this proclivity to bless and curse out of the same mouth is what Sanders' college teacher meant when he said about her, as John Brummett reports, that she's a "superb political athlete." I am married to the tight end of the UCA Bears national championship team who became a high school football coach, and my kid is a two-time All-State quarterback. I tend to think of a superb athlete as gifted by God with a talent we don't all have; a skillfulness and ease of movement that, when combined with the hard work and dedication of a team, lifts us all. We all win together.
That's what I'm looking for in a governor as well. But that's not who Sarah Sanders keeps showing me she is. Her brand of political athleticism seems not to be about team. It's about saying and doing whatever she thinks she has to do to win, no matter who gets hurt in the process.
Even if it is Arkansas' children.
Gwen Ford Faulkenberry is an English teacher and editorial director of the non-partisan group Arkansas Strong. (http://arstrong.org) Email her at gfaulkenberry@hotmail.com.