Michelle Malkin lowers the bar

With the failure of the Scott Walker recall election, Michelle Malkin took the opportunity to voice her disdain for unions, and in particular the teachers unions that organized the recall vote.

While she may have some good points, they are difficult to weed out among the 7th grade level tone Malkin takes with her piece. Apparently she believes name calling is an effective form of debate.

Mixed in with her juvenile taunts are the occasional examples of how one teacher acted inappropriately, meant to paint the entire profession with the same brush. Who doesn’t love equating the actions of one individual to the intentions of everyone within that group?

She of course follows this up with some data on union spending for the recall, which conveniently ignores the fact that Republicans and their supporters outspent Democrats by a 7 to 1 margin in the run-up to this vote. If her point is that money in elections is a problem, I agree. But that wouldn’t fit with her theme that teachers unions are a bunch of booger eating doody-heads.

I imagine that one of the big reasons for Malkin’s condescending tone is the fact that she doesn’t understand what the unions are fighting for. She seems to think that Scott Walker and state Republicans were simply “asking teachers to contribute more to their pension plans.” The reality is that Walker never asked. Framing this government power grab as union obstinance is a massive mischaracterization of the union’s position.

But the cherry on top of her article is her final paragraph, where she states that “the union bosses have made one thing clear as a playground whistle: It’s not about the children. It’s never about the children.” While fighting for the right to collectively bargain may have little to do with the children, Michelle Malkin should recognize that fighting to end collective bargaining rights isn’t about the children either. As a matter of fact, the cost-cutting measures that Malkin apparently supports will have a detrimental effect on the education that Wisconsin students receive.

Michelle Malkin seems to prescribe to this Republican notion that we have a bunch of bad teachers and education will only improve when these awful teachers are removed. Yet it is also these same Republicans who defend the wages of CEOs, because the more you pay, the better CEO you get. I’m not sure where the disconnect comes in but a recent study shows that education is no different than other professions. The more you pay, the better the employee and the better the employee, the better the results.

If Republicans wanted to return to the glory days of the U.S. they would see that a starting teacher made almost as much as first-year lawyer, while today the gap in pay is around $115,000. They might also be interested in knowing that there is a correlation with how much a country pays its teachers and the educational achievement of that country.

So while Michelle Malkin can take issue with the union bosses and the occasional radical teacher, acting like she and her party somehow have the best interests of students in mind as they systematically dismantle the collective bargaining rights of U.S. union members shows how much of a four-eyed poopy face she is.