In her sometimes clumsy tributes to regular folks during the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin put a halo on teachers. She was speaking of Jill Biden when she said, "God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?''
From this I took away two things.
One, that at least this one professor at an East Coast institution of learning -- Jill Biden teaches college English -- is exempt from Palin's Roll Call of Contempt, which otherwise includes intellectuals, the Ivy League schools they attend, and pretty much the entire East Coast.
The other is teachers' pay. By saying Jill Biden would have her reward in heaven, I assumed Palin meant that she and other teachers wouldn't be getting it in more tangible currency here on earth.
But no! Palin went on: "I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they deserve. Teachers deserve to be paid more.''
You'll get no argument from me there. But wait: what pays teachers' salaries? Taxes! And where was Palin a few moments later in the debate? Back in her anti-tax groove. Taxes aren't patriotic. Taxes are bad. Taxes have to be cut, cut, cut. Did I say taxes are bad? Well, darn it, they are.
Maybe in Alaska, teachers get paid in moose stew. Here in the lower 48, public school teachers get paid with the public's tax dollars.
Follow Patt Morrison on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Op-ed columnist
Palin does, however, demonstrate the limits of education. She's been to five colleges, and none of the professors seem to have made the slightest dent in her colossal ignorance.
Sigh.