Academics Shocked To Hear Truth

Upholding the time honored tradition among the tweed set, a convention of academics booed, hissed, clamped their hands over their ears, stamped their feet, retched, vomited, and stormed out in outrage upon hearing an uncomfortable truth.

Just yesterday, according to the Politico:

A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos Tuesday morning after political analyst Michael Barone said journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, because “she did not abort her Down syndrome baby.”

Barone later said his comments at the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges were attempts at humor and may have “went over the line.”

But is anybody who doesn’t have a PhD so dense to believe that what Barone said wasn’t absolutely, utterly, extremely and completely 100 percent true? Is anyone mad enough to think that the media wouldn’t have adored Palin if she had been pro-choice and admitted to offing her one of her own children who had the gall of being born imperfect in every way. They would’ve hailed her as the one who could renew the Republican Party. They would’ve raised huzzahs for McCain for his brave choice. They would’ve called him a maverick, so he didn’t have to call himself one thirty times each interview.

Barone was right. He told the truth. He knows it. He wants to continue working so he’ll say he was joking but he knows that what he said was absolutely correct. Barone remembers Larry Summers, the then President of Harvard, who asked why there were fewer women math and science professors at Harvard than men? Summers speculated that it could be discrimination against women, socialization, or perhaps innate gender differences. Well, the professors wept, cried, and stormed out. They screamed until Summers resigned.

Barone doesn’t want to be Summers. And the academic set has guaranteed that they’ll never hear truth from any other speaker again.