Fondling Father: Detroit's School Board President

If we placed every elected official in US history on a continuum, ranked from 1 - 10, you would find George Washington holding down the fort at the "10" end. And, at the other end waaaaayyy over at "1" you would find Detroit School Board President Otis Mathis (h/t The Other McCain):

Otis Mathis was a D-student in high school, went to Wayne State University in a program for the academically unqualified, sued for his degree because he couldn't pass a basic English test, became a community organizer, and eventually was unanimously elected President of the School Board despite his being unqualified (just like our Community Organizer-In-Chief)including being functionally illiterate. On June 17, Mathis handed in his letter of resignation, undoubtedly written by someone else, after it was revealed that he had a habit of masturbating right in front of school Superintendent Teresa Gueyser. He tried unsuccessfully to rescind his resignation and, as Detroit News' Laura Berman said: "The Detroit Public Schools board wiped clean its website of disgraced President Otis Mathis."

Note that no one batted an eye that a D-student who had to sue for his college degree was elected to the Detroit School Board, and became its president. It was only when he got ants in his pants around the superintendent that he lost a position that rightfully should never have been his in the first place.

Detroiters and other urban types have long blamed impersonal forces - globalization, deregulation, the dreaded "white flight"- for their ills. But, when a guy like Mathis can get elected to a school board, of all places, that's a sign of poisonous voter apathy at the very least. I'd love to know the circumstances of his election. Did he have the most walking around money, or what?

You have to feel bad for any teacher who has to work within a system that would allow Otis Mathis within 10 feet of a policy making position. You have to feel doubly sorry for any parent who can't avoid putting their kid into such a system, and triply bad for the kids themselves.