Spellings as Master Puppeteer revealed

I'm giving eRobin full credit, who knew about this long ago as WaPo surprisingly reveals the true puppeteer behind the Paige tenure:

Under Paige, educators and department officials alike frequently complained that real power lay with the White House, and particularly with Spellings, then the president's point person on education.

There's more on Team Spellings in this PR piece.

I thought it was interesting that Team member Dunn gets off scot-free in his blurb of fame: remember he was the go-to guy involved the Armstrong Williams debacle when Team Spellings was still officially ensconced next to Rove in the WH, in the pre-Department of Education Days. For his complicity, you can see Dunn did well as he was awarded Chief of Staff.

Finally, a PR nuance I just have to point out:

In her four months as education secretary, Margaret Spellings has made it clear that her top priority is to fix problems with the No Child Left Behind Act, the Bush administration's landmark education initiative.

Can you spot it? "Fix problems with NCLB" is more about neutering the opposition to the bill, not about any changes to the legislation itself.