He's Got a B.S. in B.S. from Sinclair University

Hyman discovers the issue of diploma mills in his most recent "Point," most recent “Point,” despite the fact that the study commissioned by the GAO was done months and months ago and has already been covered extensively by the press.

But breaking news isn’t what Hyman is all about. While ostensibly commenting on the issue of sham “universities” from which one can buy any degree one wants without attending a class, Hyman’s real focus is on slandering government employees. As a right-wing conservative, Hyman believes government, and those who comprise it, are inherently bad. By attacking examples of shady conduct on the part of some government workers, Hyman hopes to spread his more general antipathy toward government to his audience.

Thus we have a commentary in which Hyman feigns concern about the number of government employees (over 450) who were found to have bogus degrees on their resume. Not only this, but in many cases, these degrees were purchased with funds from the federal government itself. What an example of what’s wrong with the federal government, right?

Well, yes. Certainly, these diploma mills are contemptible, and those who waste money (their own or taxpayers’) on them are insipid. But Hyman leaves out one interesting fact about the numbers of government employees who gamed the system to buy resume window dressing. While conservatives generally despise those who work for the government, there’s at least one area in which they change their tune: the Pentagon. Government employees who deliver services to the needy, work in benefits offices, or help protect consumers through regulating commerce are destructive, but those who kill people and blow things up are just fine and dandy with the average conservative. But guess what? Of the 450+ government employees identified by the GAO as having bought bogus diplomas, 200 come from a single part of the government: the Department of Defense. Donald Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense.

If Hyman really were concerned about the effects of bogus diplomas being used to by government employees to gain positions for which they are not qualified, he certainly would have focused on the area in which a disproportionate amount of this abuse occurred and where the stakes for incompetence are at their highest: the Defense Department. But because his purpose is fomenting disgust with federal employees, at least those whom he considers expendable, Hyman ignores the single most important aspect of the story.

And speaking of people holding influential positions for which they are wholly unqualified, where did you get your degree in journalism, Mark?

And that’s The Counterpoint.