They aren’t ‘A’ students.

(H/T Hot Air and Instapundit) I hate to disagree with P.J. O’Rourke on anything, but I have to, here:

The secret to the Obama annoyance is snotty lecturing. His tone of voice sends us back to the worst place in college. We sit once more packed into the vast, dreary confines of a freshman survey course—“Rocks for Jocks,” “Nuts and Sluts,” “Darkness at Noon.” At the lectern is a twerp of a grad student—the prototypical A student—insecure, overbearing, full of himself and contempt for his students. All we want is an easy three credits to fulfill a curriculum requirement in science, social science, or fine arts. We’ve got a mimeographed copy of last year’s final with multiple choice answers already written on our wrists. The grad student could skip his classes, the way we intend to, but there the s.o.b. is, taking attendance. (How else to explain this year’s census?)

America has made the mistake of letting the A student run things. It was A students who briefly took over the business world during the period of derivatives, credit swaps, and collateralized debt obligations. We’re still reeling from the effects. This is why good businessmen have always adhered to the maxim: “A students work for B students.” Or, as a businessman friend of mine put it, “B students work for C students—A students teach.”

The reason why I disagree with this is because this administration – specifically, its executive staff – reminds me of, well, me when I was twenty-three. Here’s the problem: I was insufferable when I was twenty-three*.  Smart?  Sure: also lazy, smug, lazy, procrastinating, lazy, oblivious to others’ opinions at best and indifferent to them at worst, lazy, incapable of concentrating on anything that didn’t interest me, lazy, horrible at deadlines, lazy, and serenely confident that all of these things could be compensated for by a virtuoso application of booshwah.  Which it can; except that it can’t be done and still sustain an ‘A’ average.  ‘Aristocratic C+,’ yes: ‘A,’ no.  Admittedly, ‘C+’ is better than the administration is doing right now: but then, the administration is full of people who assume that they’re twenty IQ points’ smarter than they actually are.

Which is a nice segue to the end of the O’Rourke article:

However, perhaps I should hold my tongue and temper my ire. I have just received my junior high school daughter’s report card. She’s an A student. I questioned her, and it turns out so is every one of her girlfriends including the numbskull jock and the complete feather-brain who’s besotted with Justin Bieber.

[snip]

I’d forgotten the wonderful progressiveness of the American educational system. We’re all A students now.

OK.  Maybe I can agree with P.J. O’Rourke after all.  That’s a bit of a relief, honestly.

Moe Lane

*”What’s changed, hur hur hur.” Trust me: a lot.

Crossposted to RedState.