Peter Greene watched the first full performance of Betsy DeVos playing the role of Secretary of Education and characterizes her “mom with an axe.”

The first thing he notices is the DeVos Look, which he calls “church lady smirk….like it amuses her to imagine that all those Lessers are just having fits that she is this amazing. It is the look for which ‘supercilious’ was coined, and it’s not a good look on anyone, let alone a starched white heiress. Her Trump-approved minder should really help her with that.”

She pushes the idea that while other people believe in institutions and buildings, she believes in children! Got that, you building-huggers? Anyone who disagrees with her is promoting adult concerns, while she on the other hand, cares for children, in her selfless way. If only everyone chooses, without any regulation or oversight, everything will turn out for the best. It worked for her.

It won’t do to fix the schools we have, because Obama tried, he failed, and there’s no point throwing money at them. Ah, says Peter, strange to hear from a woman who throws millions at the schools and causes she does like.

When she and Whitehurst get to the question and answer, he asks some normal questions like, how do you measure the success of your policy of full frontal choice, and she coyly responds that she is not “a numbers person.” As long as parents have many choices, and they are free to choose, things will go swimmingly. Whitehurst asks, but what if academic outcomes get worse under your plan, and she answers, things are so terrible now that they can’t get worse.

Now, questions from the audience. Won’t unfettered choice promote segregation? Answer, of course not. Question, what if parents make bad choices, doesn’t the government have a role to protect them? Answer, parents don’t make bad choices. The free market always works. If parents choose a school, it must be good.

“This is another DeVosian mystery– the implication that public schools are operated by a bunch of lying liars, but charter and private school operators are somehow more virtuous? Or is the belief here that the Free Market somehow forces people to be honest or else they’ll be deselected. Does she believe that people won’t choose you if you’re a big fat liar, because I’m pretty sure DeVos is serving at the pleasure of the living embodiment, the walking proof that lying can actually be a great way to succeed in the Free Market.”

Performance over, curtain falls.

Something tells me this line of thought–if that’s what it is–will be repeated again and again, with an occasional new anecdote about a student who was saved by a voucher or whose life was blighted by a terrible public school.

As the Warner Brothers cartoon series “Looney Tunes” used to say at the end, “That’s all there is, folks.” Was that Daffy Duck or Porky Pig or Bugs Bunny?