The big story this morning in New York, where most people don't have friends or family who'll be directly affected by the government shut down, is the resignation of Cathie Black, Mayor Bloomberg's choice for education chancellor.
It's not entirely clear yet if Black's resignation was driven by a recent poll that put her approval rating at 17 percent or some other, more mysterious force. Mayor Bloomberg said just now that he and Black had "mutually agreed" that she should step down and that "I take full responsibility for the fact that this has not worked out as either of us had expected."
Whatever the inside story of this decision, Black's short tenure provides a strong counterpoint to the argument, popular at federal agencies like the Treasury Department and often applied to Mitt Romney, that success in an unrelated field prepares people for holding public office. In Black's case, her total lack of knowledge about education and her less-than-politic attitude made her unpopular from the outset, certainly with the public and perhaps with her staff: Black's resignation closely followed on the news that a second of her top deputies had left the department.
