Teacher for President

Your Humble Blogger’s Perfect Non-Reader reads very well, thank you. She’s particularly fond of the Oz books, and, being her old man’s daughter, her favorite is not the Wonderful Wizard but the Lost Princess. Pretentious five-year-old! Score!

Anyway, she brought home from Kindergarten library a picture book called My Teacher For President, which turns out to be outright liberal propaganda. The book (which is, by the way, wonderful) takes the form of a letter from an elementary school student, outlining the reasons why his teacher would be a good President of the United States. Each reason is illustrated by one image of the teacher in the classroom and one image of the teacher as President. For instance, the teacher has lots of experience with the media, as illustrated by a press conference and by videotape spilling from the player. She’s used to being followed, by her students (single file) and by the Secret Service and the press (in an unruly mob). She signs important documents, a bathroom pass on one side, and a Charity Bill on the other. She’s a good listener, shown listening to a student on one side and a striking construction worker on the other. She arranges a truce between two students in the playground, and between to potentates in the UN. She cares about healthcare, as evidenced by a bandaged knee and, um, I don’t remember the illustration, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on here, right?

The values and skills that the book assumes are good for the Presidency are compassion, empathy and stewardship. There is no image of steely resolve, with a tardy kid getting sent to the corner. There’s no image of the teacher letting the kids beat each other senseless after school because her job shouldn’t interfere with the sovereignty of the local police. There’s no image of the teacher spurring economic growth by auctioning off lunches to the highest bidder. It’s the mommy state, one hundred percent. I mean, there’s also no image of the teacher canceling the field trip and sliding the money to her friends, and cackling gleefully while the rival school burns with the kids in it. It was tempting to try to write a Teacher for President spoof with all the things that Our Only President and his cabal of crooks and incompetents have actually done, but my real point is that there’s not even the stuff that Our Only President claims he thinks ought to be the qualities and skills of a President.

The thing that works particularly well about this book as propaganda is that it doesn’t argue for its criteria, it assumes them. A parent who thinks that, for instance, the President ought not get involved in labor issues, or certainly not on the side of striking workers, would have to actually set the book down and explain why the President needs to be a good explainer, rather than a good listener. A parent who thinks that the president shouldn’t get involved in health care would have to put the book down and explain why the free market can better handle our needs.

In fact, the idea that what makes a good teacher would make a good President is laughable, and—here’s the point—it’s a joke. See? Kay Winters isn’t really saying your teacher would make a good president.

But she is, really.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.