Well, it’s happened. Arne Duncan is going to be the next Secretary of Education.

The theory of magic lawyer powers has prevailed.

Don’t get me wrong. I think one can have a completely irrelevant degree, and do a fine job.

But isn’t it just a little bit interesting that when Obama was looking for a Secretary for the Department of Energy he was able to find a person that was a Nobel prize-winning physicist who had also distinguished himself as an administrator? And that when he went looking for an economic team, he grabbed highly respected economists who also had some administrative skill?

But when he considered who should lead the Department of Education, Arne Duncan, an administrator with no scholarly or professional credentials in the practice or theory of teaching, did just fine.

Put aside the union wars, the phonics vs. whole language debates, the perpetual war between the just-sit-still-and-learn-dammit crowd and the people that think we might grasp a little higher.

Put all that aside.

Because what you have here is the government view in a nutshell: Energy and climate change are about science, the economy is about, you know, economics.

And education? Education is just an administrative headache we haven’t solved yet. But with the help of some varsity-basketball lawyer types, we’ll get it all sorted out.