I know everyone is going to focus on the president’s whoppers on Iraq (and I am right with you that the pro-war faction in the country, including too many Democrats, remains dangerously out of touch) but here’s one that is getting virtually no comment: his call to meet competition from China and India by increasing financing for basic science research, training 70,000 new high school Advanced Placement teachers and recruiting 30,000 math and science professionals into the nation’s classrooms.

This is not about our children being poor math students or bad at science–though I certainly am not against people being smarter. Competition is based on one thing only: wages. We can have all the rocket scientists–literally and figuratively–that we want. But, it will make no difference if corporations can run abroad to other countries paying a fraction of the wages people are paid here.

What we need is a change in trade policy, not education policy, to address competition. And the sad problem is that the Democratic party, or at least large segments of it (that continue to get campaign contributions from large corporations) does not get this.