"Blind Side" a Hit

It was nearly three years ago that we wrote about the story of Michael Oher. He's the left offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, and his story was told by Michael Lewis in The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.

Oher was a throwaway child of the ghetto and a drug-addict mother. Until he was adopted by a Christian high school and a wealthy couple.

Now The Blind Side is a major motion picture with $100 million in grosses for the first two weeks.

Star Parker writes about The Blind Side today, and, as a black conservative, well she might. It's all very well to look at the inspirational side of the story:

Michael Oher's story has already received much attention. How a homeless black 15-year-old winds up in a Christian private school and how a white Christian couple adopted him and helped him develop to get the grades to stay in school, become a star athlete, an All-American football player and a multimillion-dollar NFL draft pick.

But then there's the other side.

Our wake-up call should be that the factors that saved and transformed Michael Oher's life stand in stark contrast to the government solutions we hear from Washington about dealing with our problems relating to poverty and education.

Oher had attended 11 different public schools. He had a grade point average of 0.6. He had been in foster homes and typically would sleep on the floor at different houses, finding food where he could. Maybe was saved him was that he was a "gentle giant."

Of course, he was as dumb as a post.

When they first tested him at Briarcrest, the Christian school, he had an IQ of 80. Then later when they tested him again after he'd brought his school work up, he tested at 100-110. "The psychologists were dumbfounded."

President Obama wants to spend more government money on schools. What is is smoking? Government never did anything for education.

School choice and traditional values are the answers. It's freedom, not bureaucrats, that produces miracles. Michael Oher may be an exceptional individual, but his story need not be an exceptional story.

We can change all this liberal failure and injustice, you know. Any time we want. It's called voting.