While on a recent visit to Wardlack Elementary School in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, Betsy DeVos was surveying the school cafeteria when a child started choking on a piece of fried okra. The secretary quickly rushed over and performed the Heimlich, dislodging the obstruction from the child’s throat.
Then, on her way home, she pulled over to rescue a dog stranded in the middle of the interstate, which she has since adopted after a thorough and public search failed to find its owner.
Despite these objectively good acts, many on the left are nevertheless condemning her choices. A cacophony of detractors has, for example, accused her of offending cafeteria workers by declaring the product of their hard work a choking hazard. “DeVos isn’t satisfied insulting public school teachers, she has to disparage the support staff, too!,” decried Randi Weingarten.
Some have even called into question whether she saved the child at all. A teacher sitting at a nearby table in the cafeteria, who later met with reporters, said, “The child was coughing. You can’t cough if you can’t breathe. A nurse was right there!” Another educator accused her of “staging the entire incident with a lifelike robot from a STEM classroom.”
As for the dog, many critics have pointed to DeVos’s ardent support of school choice as evidence of “rampant hypocrisy.” Said one elderly gentleman on a Yoknapatawpha County local news program, “The secretary, who is sooo fond of choice, singlehandedly robbed that poor dog of the right to choose where he stood! The dog must’ve liked the street. Why else would he be there?” Others have accused her of negligence, charging that anyone who claims to be acting in the best interest of an animal should hold a veterinary license. They’re demanding that DeVos produce some kind of credentials to justify her handling of a helpless creature, or else face heavy fines and possibly imprisonment.
When reached for comment, DeVos seemed unaware of the criticism. She was, however, reportedly very happy—wearing a big, earnest, Midwest smile—and accompanied by her new dog, Grizzly.