Kerry's Race-baiting.

ITEM: "Speaking to the African Methodist Episcopal Church world conference in Indianapolis" Democratic' presidential candidate John Kerry, "called for 'a new era of responsibility' that asks as much of government as it does of citizens.... 'All of us have to be responsible for our actions: Kerry told the 10,000 or so people attending the session at the Indiana Convention Center.... "

The Indianapolis Star jot July 7 further reported that Kerry "called for an America in which more money is spent on early childhood and other education programs than on sending people to prison.... " "Don't tell me that more African-Americans in prison than in college is the best that we can do," Kerry said.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The Democrats and the largest union in the country, the National Education Association, now feign dismay over the federal web of rules and regulations that always accompanies federal funding. Such funding has risen dramatically, from an (inflation-adjusted) $25 billion in 1965 to over $108 billion in 2002. Student performance, meanwhile, has lagged.

Under President Bush, federal education expenditures are up 60 percent. Annual spending for the poorest school districts, under the Title I program, was a huge $8.8 billion at the end of the Clinton years, and has jumped to a more monstrous $13.3 billion this year. Nevertheless, the 2.7 million-member NEA is spending an estimated $90 million (and many millions more on indirect efforts) to defeat President Bush.

John Kerry apparently would be more slavish in doing the NEA's bidding. His supporters must realize that he places little stock in that repeated rhetorical tic about individual responsibility. This became particularly clear earlier this year in Ohio. Discussing education, the senator again trotted out his claim, before a largely black audience, that there are more black Americans in prison than in college. "But," he said, "it's not their fault."

That pandering claim, meant to be racially polarizing, is also false.

There are 884,500 blacks incarcerated nationwide, including 818,900 black men and 65,600 black women, according to Department of Justice statistics for 2002. However, there are 2.28 million blacks in college (according to the U.S. Census), including 1.48 million black women and 802,000 black men. There are actually more blacks in college than there are incarcerated Americans of all races and sexes (2.02 million).