The College Fix

Charles C.W. Cooke writes for National Review:

Doctor Biden has joined Twitter as @DrBiden. The account is “run by Dr. Jill Biden’s Office,” and it tells us absorbing things about Dr. Biden — things such as “Yesterday, Dr. Biden hosted an education roundtable” and “Yesterday, Dr. Biden honored the nation’s top teachers.” It retweets praise, too: “Thank you Dr. Biden for your work as an educator and as a voice for all educators in our nation,” reads one tribute. If a tweet is signed “Jill,” the doctoral bio informs us, this indicates that it is a “tweet from Dr. Biden.” “Jill,” if you’re wondering, is Dr. Biden’s nickname. Her formal name is “Dr.”

Wherever she goes and whatever she does, Dr. Biden is always referred to as “Dr. Biden.” “Is Joe Biden married to a physician?” wondered the Los Angeles Times in January. “You might have gotten that impression while watching television coverage of the inauguration.” Yes, you might have indeed.

Dr. Biden isn’t a physician, of course. She has a doctorate – in “educational leadership,” whatever the hell that is. This Ed.D gives her the right to call herself “Dr.” in much the same way as my Master’s degree gives me the right to put MA after my name. Perhaps my Twitter handle should be @MA(Oxon)Charles?

Or . . . perhaps not. It’s not @MA(Oxon)Charles because I’m keenly aware that my non-vocational education really isn’t that important to anybody other than me. (And, perhaps, my mother.) Dr. Biden has made a different judgment about the value of hers, and in doing so she has become another symptom of our Potemkin aristocracy, to which only those who have letters after their name may belong…

Read the full story at National Review Online.

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