Grindhouse

The "issues" section of official McCain-Palin campaign Website has a page devoted to "John McCain's Plan for Strengthening America's Schools." The first of his Education Principles reads as follows:

John McCain Will Enact Meaningful Reform In Education. Now is the time to demand real, new reform earned through discipline, grinding work, tough choices and leadership. John McCain has dedicated his career in public service to the hard and sometimes unpopular work of achieving meaningful reform.

"Grinding"? Really? That's an awfully strange choice of words. Merriam-Webster offers several definitions, including "to weaken or destroy gradually," which I hope wasn't the intent, to "rotate the hips in an erotic manner"--no, that's probably not it--and "drudge ; especially : to study hard ." I'm guessing that's what they were shooting for, although I have to say it's not the most inspiring message for America's youth: "I will reform education so as to ensure that you are required to spending countless hours engaged in the kind of academic drudgery that forever extinguishes your love of learning!" Probably, the intent was to signal a certain old school toughness and anti-whippersnapper attitude on McCain's part, and who knows, there are a probably lot of fellow elderly voters out there who share that point of view. In any case, students always have other options if grinding doesn't work out, like goofing off a lot, finishing near the bottom of your academic class, and marrying a rich person. 

Update: A reader suggests via email that by "grinding" McCain is referring to the process of reform, not the educational experience he wants that reform to achieve. That's a fair point. I'm skeptical that, given his historical inattention to education, McCain actually intends to do such grinding work, but nonetheless that seems to be what he's saying. Lesson: don't blog before the first cup of coffee.