LOWERING THE BAR. Ruben Navarrette reveals the dirty little secret of preferential policies, "Now racial preferences that intend to let more blacks and Latinos into college -- even if it means lowering standards -- do much the same thing. And yet, where's the outrage? For all their talk about compassion, liberals -- affirmative action's most vocal defenders -- aren't bothered that students admitted under these lower standards often struggle and drop out," and notices that the real flaw might be with the lousy K-12 education a lot of those kids get, to the approval of Betsy's Page, Doxagora, and Power Line. Meanwhile, Thomas Sowell notes that a Silent Generation relic who got into the academy at a time when tenure was easily obtained and budgets were growing has not drawn a good parallel to contemporary affirmative action. Turf 'em out, I say.