Ahhhh! THAT'S where I know that name.

This happened well over a month ago, but I just now had a realization that makes it all relevant. At the University of Pennsylvania, it is a tradition for the president of UPenn to have a Halloween party at her house. During the party, the president, Dr. Amy Gutmann, posed for pictures with various students who showed up to the party decked out in their Halloween garb. One of the pictures taken that night with Dr. Gutmann was this one:

The student next to whom she is standing is named Saad Saadi, and as you can see, he is dressed as an Islamic suicide bomber. Yes it is Halloween, so his costume is sufficiently scary, but there are some tasteful limits, even for Halloween costumes. Would you dress up as a slave? Hitler? A person with Down's Syndrome? An Islamic suicide bomber?

Dr. Gutmann later released a mealy-mouthed statement explaining that she did not at first realize that Mr. Saadi was dressed as a suicide bomber. If she couldn't figure that out at first glance, then she should probably have that Ph.D. of hers revoked, or at the very least - in the words of my father - she should take out her IQ card and lower it a few points.

So how do I know Dr. Amy Gutmann? Well, I don't know her personally, but I know way too much about how her mind operates. I recently had the revelation - I'm a little slow on the draw sometimes - that in one of my Masters in Education classes that I took last year, I had to read Dr. Gutmann's book, Democratic Education. It had to be one of the most eye-crossingly dull stack of pages I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Judging by her book that I endured, and her ill-advised pose next to a guy dressed as an Islamic suicide bomber, I would say that Dr. Gutmann might have a lot of book sense, but not much common sense.

To top it all off, I see in her Wikipedia profile that Dr. Gutmann is Jewish. She might as well have posed for a photo with a student dressed up as an Auschwitz guard.

Good Day to You, Sir