AND
THE BLOB
a moment DeVos looked nonplussed at this ignorant assertion, which in turn gave her detractors the chance to say she looked ill- informed and clueless. They particularly pounced on her answer to another non-question: “Have you seen the really bad schools?” “I have not,” DeVos said haltingly, “I have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming.” The question was cleverly posed. Of course the secretary of education has seen bad schools! It’s a doubly pointless question in the case of someone like DeVos, who has spent two decades promoting school choice in inner cities. Stahl knows as much. Devos' good manners, according to a hostile and hyperpartisan press, are a sign of weakness. But again, what would be a proper answer? Maybe Stahl felt the cause of improving schools would be better served if the secretary of education answered like this: “Oh hell yes, Les. Rufus T. Firefly Middle School in Slippery Rock is a cesspool. And Wolf J. Flywheel High in Potterville – I’d rather watch an autopsy than set foot in that dump again...” No answer would have satisfied Stahl or anyone else gripped by the fever of DeVos Hate. Singling out as “really bad,” on national television no less, any of the schools that hosted visits by DeVos would have been demoralizing and insulting to her hosts. And of course DeVos would have been reviled for saying it. But more: It would have been impolite.
And here we get to an essential element of DeVos’s dilemma. Betsy DeVos is a supremely rich Midwesterner, born and bred. But no amount of money can squeeze that Midwestern twang out of her voice. The customary diffidence of the Midwesterner, which DeVos has in huge helpings, often looks to the sophisticated eye, trained in Manhattan and the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., like sheer dopiness. Midwesterners are raised with the idea that to talk about oneself too much, or to argue fervently about politics, are plain bad manners. And good manners, according to the inversions of a hostile and hyperpartisan press, are taken as a sign of weakness. And so they pounce. But even this isn’t the whole story. Perhaps the wellspring of DeVos Hate can be found in the first line of another New York Times editorial alerting its readers to the evil she embodies. It was a quote from one of DeVos’ speeches, a line that elegantly summarizes her own philosophy (even if it does overstep the bounds of Midwestern propriety) and irreversibly brands her as an enemy: “Government sucks.” “Horace Mann” is a pseudonym for someone who works in the executive branch and is what we journalists call “a highly-place source who requests anonymity because he or she is no damn fool.”
American Consequences 25
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker