George Graham

What Did Rep. Paul Broun Learn at School?

I didn’t go to school in America so I might not be qualified to rate its education system, but judging from some of the  country’s college graduates, I have grave doubts about American education.

Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia is a case in point. This guy is the son of a congressman, and grew up in a privileged environment. He not only went to the University of Georgia at Athens but even has a doctorate from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

That leads me to believe he was not dropped on his head as a baby, and that he is alert enough to figure out that the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone.

I can only suppose that he suffered some kind of brain injury or disease in the years since his graduation… unless, the institutions of higher learning that gave him their seal of approval are – well – bogus.

Doctor Broun (pictured above) considers U.S. President Barack Obama a Marxist!

The Republican congressman refused to attend the president’s state of the union speech Tuesday night because, he tweeted (yeah tweeted!) Barack Obama “believes in socialism.”  This self-proclaimed student of political philosophy also declared that the president is “showing signs of Marxism” and “doing exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany.””

Can you imagine a graduate of the University of the West Indies spouting such nonsense?  Or even an average sixth form student at – say – Kingston College? Jamaica’s schools and colleges don’t even enjoy a tiny fraction of the funding showered on American institutions, but manage to turn out graduates who do not – usually – sound like gibbering idiots.

And that’s what Broun sounds like – a gibbering idiot.

Obama’s state of the union address was relentlessly un-socialistic. It was not just to the right of JFK and Lyndon Johnson, it was to the right of many prominent Republicans of my generation – Nelson Rockefeller, for one, Dwight Eisenhower for another. His foreign policy pronouncements sometimes approached the hawkishness of  Barry Goldwater and his tax relief proposals reeked of Ronald Reagan.

I figured the president realizes how crazy the American political environment has become and is willing to settle for whatever crumbs of progressive legislation he can cadge from a curmudgeonly Congress.

And if that reminds Rep. Broun of Marx and the Nazis, well, all I can say is, poor America, I weep for you and I throw my shoes at your colleges.

About the author

gwgraeme

I am a Jamaican-born writer who has lived and worked in Canada and the United States. I live in Lakeland, Florida with my wife, Sandra, our three cats and two dogs. I like to play golf and enjoy our garden, even though it's a lot of work. Since retiring from newspaper reporting I've written a few books. I also write a monthly column for Jamaicans.com