Malkin Celebrates Closure Of Elementary School Named For Obama

An elementary school in New Jersey that's named after President Obama is shutting down, and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin thinks this is “fitting”:

Malkin seems to be justifying her glee by alleging that the school is being closed because of waste. In doing so, she quotes the first few paragraphs of an Asbury Park Press article about the state fiscal monitor's decision to close the school, and a note from “reader Peter” about the Asbury Park school system's supposed wastefulness.

However, Malkin managed to leave out the paragraph of the Asbury Park Press article explaining that the state official cited declining enrollment as a factor, as well as the paragraph in which the local superintendent said there are advantages to the decision.

From the Press article (emphasis added):

Bruce Rodman, the monitor, made the decision after the school board in recent weeks failed to support a plan by Schools Superintendent Denise Lowe to reconfigure elementary grades to create early childhood learning centers in the district, a plan which would have kept the Obama school open.

Officially renamed early in 2010 after the president, the building was known as the Bangs Avenue School since it was built a century ago. The state School Development Authority had planned to build a new school to replace the historic building, but has pulled back and Lowe said recently the state would not build a new school.

The district has had a significant decline in enrollment, Rodman said in a letter explaining his decision. Lowe has said she preferred her own plan to keep the school open but have preschool-through-third grade children go to the Obama and Thurgood Marshall schools and then group all fourth and fifth graders at Bradley Elementary.

But she also said there were advantages to closing the Obama school, and it will bring the children in the early grades together at two schools instead of three as she had sought.

Closing her post, Malkin wrote:

Yes they can?

Not any more.

Sing it with me: “Mmm, mmm, mmm...”

Yeah, take that, Obama! A school official in New Jersey made a logistical decision!