Political brainwashing

Post-revolution schools in Russia taught students that the czar was an enemy of the people.

Students in Islamic schools are taught that Christians and Jews are evil.

And in a high school in Bennington, Vt., a high school teacher is trying to indoctrinate students into his own extremist political views.

Bret Chenkin, a social studies and English teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School, gave students a vocabulary test that included the following question:

"I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes."

This man, like illegal drugs, should not be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school. Both drugs and his form of political indoctrination seek to alter young pliable minds, rather than expand them. This is wrong, and has no place in American schools.

Chenkin shrugs off his methods as "tongue in cheek" hyperbole. But the truth is, he is running his own little re-education camp by planting very clear and extreme views in the fertile minds of his captive high-schoolers. Not only is he insulting the president of the United States, he is painting all red-staters as having "below-average minds."

Shame on Vermont if it allows such condescending political brainwashing in its schools.