Arne Duncan - One Of The Best And Brightest Of Our Generation

We need the best & brightest to #teach. Join the @TEACHorg Thunderclap to recruit the next generation http://t.co/uauAhwfL9V
— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) November 9, 2013

The phrase "Best and Brightest" doesn't mean what Arne Duncan seems to think it means. 

In modern usage, "Best and Brightest" has a negative connotation.  David Halberstam used it to describe the geniuses in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who, despite their Ivy League pedigrees and high IQ's, managed to take the country into a quagmire of a war that it still hasn't recovered from. 

Halberstam meant the term ironically, but Arne Duncan, who clearly is one of this generation's "Best and Brightest," doesn't understand irony or he would know that the last thing he would want in the teaching profession is the "Best and Brightest" as Halberstam used the phrase.

Of course Duncan could be referring to the Shelley usage of the phrase, which does not have the same negative connotation as the Halberstam usage, but I suspect Duncan neither knows who Percy Shelley was nor has read any of his poetry.

Arne Duncan, along with his genius boss in the White House, is truly one of the "Best and Brightest" this country has to offer, an exemplar of those same geniuses Halberstam wrote about in his book the "Best and Brightest."

Duncan shows that with each utterance to the press and each tweet that emanates from his Twitter account.