Ohio Schools chief Terhar soils herself on Facebook

Ohio Schools chief Terhar soils herself on Facebook

…Peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.

We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.

 — President Obama's Second Inaugural Address

Well, so much for the era of good feelings.

Less than 24 hours after the nation celebrates the inauguration of its newly-reelected president, hears him extol the virtues of our national creed, and remind us of our solemn duty to work together despite political difference, Ohioans learn that Debe Terhar, president of their State Board of Education, has linked President Obama to Adolph Hitler on her Facebook page.

Terhar, a Cincinnati Republican and proud Tea Party member, was re-elected last week to a second term as president of the 19-member state school board, posted the picture of the megalomaniacal Nazi leader in a Facebook post critical of the President’s gun control efforts in the aftermath of the Newtown school tragedy.

Ohio School Board president Debe Terhar, shown here with
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner

Terhar’s post reportedly uses a photo that may have been drawn from a Facebook site, “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children”. I spent some time on one of several FB sites with that moniker this afternoon and got a refresher in just how vile, ignorant and racist some of our fellow Americans can be.

Of course, it doesn’t matter where Terhar sourced her Hitler reference. The larger point is that a woman capable of displaying such woeful ignorance herself heads our state’s education policy.

Terhar of course denies that she was comparing President Obama to Hitler. Apparently she would like to keep the post to which Gov. Kasich appointed her. [She was re-elected to the Board but by all accounts was Kasich’s choice for the board presidency.]

Terhar’s campaign slogan, “Raising the Bar for Ohio’s Children”, was apparently a call for neither historical understanding or critical thinking.  

You can learn more about this soon-to-be former school board president here.

I say soon-to-be former president because her action makes her a liability for Gov. Kasich. Ohio Democrats have already called upon the Governor to dismiss her. She has been from the beginning a political hack supported by those who are out to undermine public education in Ohio. Her lack of temperance now renders her unfit to continue that mission. Kasich will have to find somebody a lot smarter to lead the conservative push to dumb down Ohio education.

Angela Thi Bennett

By the way, we put in a call seeking comment on Terhar’s act of conscience to Angela Thi Bennett, an East Cleveland attorney and Kasich appointee to the state school board. We’ll let you know what she says when she gets back to us. She was reappointed to a full term on by the Governor only a couple of weeks ago.