For those who don't love The Game known as Politics, Jennifer Rubin is a "conservative columnist for the Washington Post." She's famous (or infamous, I suppose) for being the most obviously partisan pundit on the American scene right now, blindly praising every Republican speaker as "honest," "exciting," and "direct," while describing every Democratic speaker as "deceptive," "boring," and "ineffective," almost to the point of parody. "Clint Eastwood's speech was more talked about than Obama's," "the Republican bench is deep, the Democrats don't even have one," "Obama put forward no numbers and no plan, unlike Romney," and so forth.

But on the last day of the Democratic convention, there was one tweet that got my attention. It had nothing to do with politics. She has teenagers, and it's back to school week: "I don't think I could pass a third of these classes. When did high school get so hard?"

High school is preparation for life. Everyone should be able to get through it, and every class should be manageable by any adult. I don't expect everyone to be able to able to do French I immediately, but I do expect every adult to be able to follow along, help their child through every topic, and if necessary familiarize him or herself with the child's effort.

Jennifer Rubin's not merely a bad pundit; she's also a bad parent. By proclaiming herself unable and unwilling to navigate the skillset our community agrees is the minimum necessary to survive our technologically advanced civilization, she's telling her children it's acceptable to do the same.

Tags: shrill
Current Mood: amused