It’s obvious that the pandering Mayor Bloomberg has goofed yet again when his latest brainstorm is criticized not only by the New York Post and Conservative Party chairman Mike Long, but the New York Times as well. The subject is the Harvey Milk High School, which will open this fall with 100 gay and transgender students in a $3.2 million attempt to segregate them from bullies and homophobes in the city’s public school system. Forget for the moment that Bloomberg’s already been taken hostage by union leader Randi Weingarten, and think about what message this sends to other kids who are harassed during classes.

As Long repeatedly said last week, "Maybe we should have schools for chubby kids who get picked on. Maybe all kids who wear glasses should have special schools." The Post, in its July 29 editorial, was spot-on: "In ultra-litigious New York City, it’s a safe bet that the fragmentation won’t stop with the Harvey Milk School. If sexual orientation and/or lifestyle justify a segregated school, why not life experiences? How about a school for Haitian kids? Russian immigrants? Are Bloomberg and [schools Chancellor Joel] Klein prepared to accommodate such demands?"

That’s a rhetorical question, but the answer is probably yes. Maybe a grade school can be established for left-handed pupils–funded by another increase in the city’s sales tax–or a school for rich kids who weren’t accepted by any private institution.

The Times’ Aug. 3 editorial was less strident, and took pains to repeat its gay/transgender credentials by "deplor[ing] the homophobic response that creation of the school has unleashed in some quarters." And the writer is living in another world if he or she really believes that the curriculum at Harvey Milk will be "traditional." How is that possible? It’s simple logic that the newly empowered students will demand some courses that focus exclusively on the history and oppression of homosexuals in American culture. I don’t blame these teenagers; given a niche school, why wouldn’t they dictate to teachers–gay or straight–exactly what they prefer to study?

A college thesis on the question of, say, Woodrow Wilson’s sexuality is just as valid as a less imaginative one about how JFK was just about to pull American advisers and troops out of Vietnam before he was assassinated in 1963. But high schoolers ought to learn the basics, such as the number of states in this country, rudimentary chemistry, and maybe even how to spell. A semester-long examination of literary pedophiles can wait until after graduation.

After much head scratching, the Times editorial finally concludes with (though qualified) a cogent statement. It reads: "A school like Harvey Milk could also serve as a safe haven and short-term solution for gay teenagers and others who are most traumatized by mistreatment at their schools. In the long term, though, history has taught us the best way to fight discrimination is to dismantle it where it occurs."

A one-hand clap for Gail Collins. In reality, however, high school often sucks for a slew of kids, whether they’re ostracized for being fat, non-athletic, ugly, black, yellow, purple, or promiscuous. The majority survives those years, often with a renewed self-determination, and years later can laugh at their tormenters, who’ve subsequently made a hash of their own lives.

On Monday, the Times’ Joyce Purnick wrote a smart column about the absurd amount of notice the Harvey Milk High School has generated in the media. (One demerit: Although Purnick mentioned outlets like the Post, the Today show, Crossfire, the Scottish Daily Record, and the Calgary Herald, her own paper’s coverage was omitted from the list.)

Purnick begins: "There were two interesting stories about the New York City schools in the last week. One was about pushing weak students out of schools so they can’t lower test scores. The other was about expanding an old program for gay students and turning it into its own school... Guess which got the attention? Hint: it has nothing to do with the number of students involved."

Can’t argue with that. However, Purnick might’ve burnished the story even further by slamming newspapers that run front-page stories when a daily lays off 18 journalists, while burying the more significant news that a factory or manufacturing plant has closed, leaving thousands unemployed.

Kerry in Panic Mode

I agree with Sen. John Kerry’s stinging denunciation of the Vatican’s outrageous directive last Thursday to American legislators on how to express his or her political views. The statement issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith–the Vatican’s p.r. machine–read: "[T]he Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition [to gay marriage] clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral."

What’s really immoral is the Catholic Church allowing a frail and disease-ridden Pope John Paul II to remain on this throne. Wouldn’t it be novel, as the current pope decomposes in his grave, if the Vatican chose a leader who was 40 years old and could conceivably update Catholicism to maybe the 1970s?

Mike Barnicle, a sinner guilty of plagiarism who was absolved by Mort Zuckerman, had a great line in Sunday’s Daily News. He said: "I can’t help thinking that if the Pope got as steamed about his employees hitting on little boys while the bosses protected felons as he does about a couple lesbians or homosexuals setting up light housekeeping, maybe Catholic pastors in America wouldn’t be staring at so many half-filled churches on Sunday mornings."

The Houston Chronicle’s well-nourished (oops, sorry about that) Cragg Hines ignored the major Democrats who are opposed to gay marriage and instead directed all his wrath at President Bush, making the insane prediction that he’ll push for a Constitutional amendment banning legal unions. On Aug. 3, he wrote: "With friends like President Bush, homosexuals don’t need any enemies. And heterosexuals with the least libertarian urge shouldn’t sit by smugly. Bush stands ready to muck about with the Constitution to enforce his religious beliefs. If defining marriage is the first item, what’s next on his agenda?"

Hines is hardly a political novice. Does he really believe that Bush will make gay marriage the centerpiece of his reelection campaign? That he’d alienate suburban voters in battleground states when he can appease his conservative base with a few vague remarks?

But back to Kerry, the once-anointed front-runner for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, who’s running a historically inept campaign. It’s fine for you or me to blast the Vatican for 18th-century platitudes, but really dumb for a national candidate. Kerry, quoted in last Saturday’s Boston Herald, took issue with his church’s statement (and I thought the Massachusetts patrician who fought in Vietnam was Jewish this year), citing the separation of church and state. "It is important not to have the church instructing politicians. That is an inappropriate crossing of the line in this country," he said. You can guess what comes next. "President Kennedy drew that line very clearly in 1960 and I believe we need to stand up for that line today."

He added, convincing no one, "This isn’t a matter of political calculation, it’s simply a matter of strong personal beliefs." Kerry, who does not endorse gay marriage, an issue that Democrats are attacking Bush on, drew the ire of his own party as well as the GOP. His fellow Democrat and New Englander Raymond Flynn, former ambassador to the Vatican, said "Too many Catholic politicians want to have it both ways, they want the Catholic vote but then they go ahead and ignore Catholic teaching."

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson was more blunt: "It seems like a very odd political strategy to attack the Catholic Church but Howard Dean is forcing Sen. Kerry to take a number of odd positions on a number of odd issues."

It suits me fine if Dean continues his juggernaut–he’s on the cover of both Time and Newsweek’s current issues–but the angry WASP is probably peaking too soon. Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter hems and haws about the former Vermont governor’s chances, including the requisite cliche that the Democratic primaries are five months away, which–say it loud!–is "an eternity in politics." And he includes a dig from Clinton crony James Carville, the savvy strategist who made a fortune after helping elect last century’s worst president. Although Carville doesn’t count out Dean if he becomes a centrist, the obnoxious celebrity isn’t keen on the candidate’s current angry rhetoric.

Carville tells Alter: "The interest groups don’t really like to win. They just want a big ass-kissing festival."

(By the way, it’d be dandy if Alter aroused the consternation of height-challenged Americans. In his August 11 article, Alter describes Dean as "diminutive" and in an example of the doctor’s "pugnaciousness," writes that last year he "strutted like a little Napoleon onto the floor of the usually genteel Vermont State Senate." Tut-tut. If the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger expressed such an opinion, pickets would remain at Dow Jones’ headquarters in Battery Park for at least a month.)

I think Alter’s already on the Dean bus. Resorting once again to lazy prose, the pundit concludes: "In 1932, President Herbert Hoover’s first choice for the other party’s nomination was a crippled liberal governor named Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1980, much of President Jimmy Carter’s team thought that a too-conservative former governor named Ronald Reagan would be the easiest to beat."

In other words, in Alter’s mind, now you know the rest of the story.

Guess what? I prefer Robert Bartley’s take on the former New Yorker who grew up on Park Ave. before avoiding the Vietnam draft and moving to Vermont. On Aug. 4, Bartley wrote in the Journal: "A Dean candidacy would stamp Democrats more clearly than ever as a party that runs hoping for a sour economy at home and rooting for American humiliation in Iraq."