The Education of Right-Wing Talk Show Hosts

So many prominent right-wing media names are encouraging students not to go to school Tuesday, that we got to wondering about their own educational levels. How much do these guys know about schools or education?

It didn't take long to run that down. And, guess what?

• Rush Limbaugh turns out to be a college drop-out from a fourth-rate college in the Missouri boot heel. (We know it was "fourth-rate" because a former high school coach of ours was hired to coach that college's football team, and that was his verdict.) Limbaugh's own mother says he "flunked everything" including "dance."
  
• The twice-divorced, mentally unstable Glenn Beck took exactly one college course in his life -- in theology, no less -- and dropped it, then quit school.
• Sean Hannity dropped out of two colleges, and never graduated anywhere.
  
• Matt Drudge, the news aggregator, "graduated 341st out of a class of 355 from Norwood [Maryland] High School" in 1984. He then underwent psychiatric treatment and held a number of retail clerk jobs before the national news media began using him as their assignment editor.

Now, we'll be the first to admit that a college degree isn't a guarantee of anything. Lots of people squeak through high school and college but remain stupid. George W. Bush, for instance.

On the other hand, most parents want their kids to "work hard, stay in school" do their homework, and get the best education possible. Why? Because they know that education opens up a wider world of ideas and the opportunity, if not the certainty, to become well informed, better skilled, and more content with life.

So, why would any rational parent take advice about whether to send their kid to school on Tuesday from such a motley collection of drop-outs, dunces, and psych cases? They wouldn't, unless "something is going very wrong in the heads of a substantial number of Americans."

Dept. of Amplification
9-4 pm

MSNBC:

John Harwood: [I]f you believe that it's somehow unhealthy for kids for the president to say "work hard and stay in school," you're stupid!

Monica Novotny: (laughter)

Harwood: I'm worried for some of those kids of those parents who are upset. I'm not sure those parents are smart enough to raise those kids.