As NewsBusters reported, former Florida governor Jeb Bush pounded public school activist Matt Damon in August for putting his kids in private school.
Damon gave CNN's Jake Tapper a rather lame excuse for this in an online segment of their interview Friday while claiming, "I'd eat my shoe if he could name a Bush that ever even walked into a public school" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JAKE TAPPER, HOST: Does that just come with the territory? I mean, I know actors can be, you know, used to criticism when it comes to your talents or cast in a movie. But when it comes to activism and ideas, it might be different.
MATT DAMON: Yeah, yeah, no, I think I…
TAPPER: Well, people said, “Well, you send your kids to private school. Why are you even involved in this?”
DAMON: Well, because I, you know, because I want the public schools to, if they were, if they went back to, if I could find my, the private school that I send my kids to is the thing closest to the public school that I went to that I could find. And that’s why I send my kids to private school. I wish I didn't have to, it’s expensive, and I also want my kids to be part of a, you know, their local community, you know, and not have to commute to somewhere else to go to school.
And that’s likely why most people send their kids to private schools: because the quality of public schools in most areas is so poor.
As such, Damon was perfectly illustrating the liberal credo of “Do As I Say, NOT As I Do!”
But there was more:
TAPPER: I don’t mean to bear down on your kids, I just…
DAMON: No, no, no, no, because that was a criticism, I think it was Jeb Bush who tweeted that, and then retracted it pretty quickly. Although I'd eat my shoe if he could name a Bush that ever even walked into a public school, but that’s another story. But, but no, I…
TAPPER: You might have to eat your shoe. I’m sure.
DAMON: Really? Maybe I will. Billy Bush, maybe he’ll call me up, “Man, I went to public school.”
Heck with Billy Bush.
The Miami Herald reported in 2002 that Jeb Bush initially attended the public Grady Elementary School in Houston before mother Barbara enrolled him in the private Kincaid School closer to where they lived.
Brother George W. attended public schools in Midland, Texas - Sam Houston Elementary and San Jacinto Junior High - before being enrolled at Kincaid when the family moved to Houston.
As such, would you like some salt for that shoe, Mr. Damon?
*****Update: Tweep @bzaz points out that George W's kids Jenna and Barbara both attended public schools - Preston Hollow Elementary in Dallas and Austin High School in Austin - and Jenna a few years after graduating college worked as a teacher's aide at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Washington D.C.
(HT Twitchy)
