Here's another example of the standard wagon-circling to occur when a lefty public schoolteacher goes off the rails.

The article at the Salisbury Post refers to a recently uploaded YouTube video in which a teacher insists that speaking ill of the president can land you in jail.  But the article doesn't do the video justice; with all the sedate word choice in the former (the teacher "goes on the defensive," "says," "says," etc.), readers can hardly get a sense of how this woman actually sounds in the latter.  "Yelled" and "shrieked" would be more appropriate.

According to the teacher, whom neither the Post nor the school system will name (though the students involved in the argument have named her), Romney "is running for president.  Obama is the president."  This, according to the teacher, means that only one of the two men can be criticized.  Furthermore, "[a]s a teacher, I'm not supposed to allow you to disrespect the president of the United States.  I'm not."  And when the student insists that Obama and Romney are "equal," the teacher vehemently contradicts him.

Keep in mind the context here: it's fine to talk about Mitt Romney's purported hair-cutting atrocity from fifty years ago, but to mention that Obama admitted in Dreams from My Father to himself bullying a girl in school is verboten.

Of course, it's not exactly shocking to see a public schoolteacher injecting her liberal opinions into the curriculum.  What's really galling here is the lack of even a slap on the wrist for this Obama-booster; to wit, "[t]he Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom. This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students."  The teacher is "still employed with the district and has not been suspended for disciplinary reasons."

Meanwhile, back in October, a teacher who "allegedly" came out on Facebook (i.e., on her own time, in her own home) against gay history month got her name plastered up and down the news sphere, with investigations in full flower.  Another teacher was suspended on similar grounds in August.

But when you tell your students in a public school that George Bush "was shitty" and that "people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush" (nonsense), you get full anonymity and mincing respect by the press.  A teachable moment, indeed.