Does our state schools superintendent have a screw loose?
Has he become so addicted to the national media spotlight and his need for validation that he no longer cares whom his remarks hurt or defame at home?
Or has he perhaps forgotten his lessons in Oklahoma and U.S. history and needs a remedial class?
Because those are the only explanations I can think of that would explain Ryan Walters’ latest, tone deaf and embarrassing 1-minute-and-19-second tirade that attempts to link schools and teachers unions to the New Year’s attack in New Orleans. The remarks also included outlandish fearmongering about school classrooms turning into “terrorist training camps.”
The entire escapade might have gone unremarked upon except that the state education agency Walters leads used taxpayer resources last week to highlight his video, and Walters received national publicity.
In New Orleans, authorities say a radicalized Army veteran, brandishing an ISIS flag, drove a Ford F-150 pickup down Bourbon Street in the early hours of Jan. 1, killing 14 and injuring dozens more before law enforcement killed him. The FBI has said it is investigating the incident as a terror attack.