"The Wedge" of "Intelligent Design"

So you think, along with El Presidente, that it's perfectly reasonable to teach the theory of "intelligent design" alongside the theory of evolution in public schools?

Try out the deep background in today's NYTimes on the Discovery Institute, the Seattle think-tank that has successfully pushed "intelligent design" into the consciousness of El Presidente and into the school curriculums of at least three states.

What's perfectly clear is that the Discovery Institute is just another outpost of "movement" conservatism. It published a "manifesto" in 1999 revealingly entitled "The Wedge" (echoes of Mr. Rove's brand of politics) which sought "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies" in favor of a "broadly theistic understanding of nature."

"Many of [its] research fellows, employees and board members are ... devout and determinedly conservative; pictures of William J. Bennett, the moral crusader and former drug czar, are fixtures on office walls, and some leaders have ties to movement mainstays like Focus on the Family. All but a few in the organization are Republicans...."

Perfectly "reasonable" to give over to these folks the teaching of science to children, yes?

One critic of the Discovery Institute has described it as "the institutional love child of Ayn Rand and Jerry Falwell" (and we'll let you Google Ayn Rand on your own to discover just how apt that coupling is!).