Sounds like a dastardly genius of an evil idea, but one thing stands in the way: Joe's gargantuan ego. I think the only thing Bush could offer is for Cheney to step down and appoint Joementum to succeed him.

Joe wouldn't take the ambassorship to England, let alone the UN, unless he was sure his political career was really over and I just don't see it.

Better yet, appoint him ambassador to the Vatican. Yeah, that would work.

Nor is it about poverty. There are many white families in the same situation, and probably more poor whites than blacks. But this isn't about race or poverty.

If this family was living in a cardboard box on the sidewalk begging for handouts, without food, education or healthcare, then it would be about poverty. Rather, this family lived in a house just like DD, had food, had access to transportation, medical care, and access to the same public education as DD's own children. They even had their own backyard to play in. That's not poverty, unless one defines poverty as the quality and quantity of ones possessions rather than the lack of basic needs to survive.

The only poverty here is one of values. This woman had a house she did not care for. She had children she did not attend to; she did not teach them to clean their rooms, set the table, help cook the food, do the dishes or devote their time to their studies so the could make a better life for themselves. Their father(s) abandoned them, giving neither the time or support, let alone life lessons on which they would need to become hopeful and productive adults.

The mother may even be mentally ill, too depressed, hopeless and ill educated to do anything other than watch TV while the children were left to their own devices. DD didn't have a poor family living next door, she had a bad neighbor. This family could have been plopped into a mansion in Beverly Hills and the outcome would have been the same.

There are plenty of families relying on state, federal or private charity who keep their Section 8 home clean, keep their children fed, and their second hand clothes clean and make sure they are doing well in school so that they may one day go to college. Most often we call these people immigrants.

The Federal, state, local governments and private charities can provide housing, food, education, but they rarely can provide a value system that encourages or pressures parents into caring for what they have, especially their children. And there seems no ability to convince someone to care for what they do not own and may be taken away at a whim.

I don't know what the answer is: forced parenting classes, weekly visits from the Child Protective Services to ensure the parent is attending to benchmark child rearing goals, incentives such as applying part of the housing subsidy to an ownership interest in the house or apartment so the family has an interest in improving the household, group meetings where impovershed single parents can trade daycare and develop mutual support.

That may help, but saying this is a result of financial disadvantage or racial make up is not an explanation.