I’ll bet you can’t watch this Fox News interview with Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Haley Betancourt without choking up as she talks about losing eight friends in yesterday’s mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. One of the many poignant moments in this heartbreaking segment was when she tearfully thanked her teacher for saving her life.
Betancourt’s narrative was a little confusing but apparently her teacher quickly thought, after all the students had rushed into the hall during the shooting, to open her classroom and usher students inside it. “If it wasn’t for that, I think we could’ve all been dead,” a distraught Betancourt said. “So thank you so much, Miss Lippel, if you’re watching this.”
“I’m sure she knows, Haley,” host Martha MacCallum said. “She did exactly the right thing … I’m glad that your teacher was such a hero and saved all of you.”
Which reminded me that when Fox News usually talks about public school teachers and public schools, it’s to demonize them almost as enemies of America. Todd Starnes has suggested at least some public schools are too pro-Muslim. Ditto Pete Hegseth. Contributor Gary B. Smith said Chicago public school teachers “don’t care about the kids” and are only “looking out for themselves.” Ann Coulter likened investing in public schools to “investing in the horse track.” Jesse Watters ambushed an official at a Massachusetts elementary school because the school had the audacity to ban Christmas items from its holiday gift room. “We’re just trying to help out the kids,” Watters claimed, when he was confronted by a police officer over his threatening behavior.
You probably get the picture.
So I hope MacCallum and her fellow Fox propagandists will remember Betancourt’s teacher the next time they decide to put public schools in their cross hairs.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Meanwhile, watch young Betancourt describe the horror of what happened yesterday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida yesterday, from the February 15, 2018 The Story with Martha MacCallum.
