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Education put to the humor test
By Greg Toppo
With twin scandals nipping at her heels, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings tonight appeals directly to America's youth: She appears on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.
"She actually is a guest that we've been trying to book for a long time," says executive producer David Javerbaum, who jokes that Spellings' appearance is "the ultimate admission of defeat for education."
Producers first asked Spellings last fall about appearing on the show on cable's Comedy Central. Her spokeswoman, Katherine McLane, says the timing worked out for tonight's taping because Spellings appears today at a conference in New York.
She made history last fall as the first sitting Cabinet secretary to appear on Jeopardy!. She'll make history again tonight as the first to appear on Stewart's show.
"For some reason, they seem to feel that we have some kind of problem with some of the things the Bush administration has done," Javerbaum says.
Spellings, a self-proclaimed American Idol fan who recently attended a taping of the hit show, commented Monday, "I'm completing my trifecta of U.S. popular culture: Jeopardy!, American Idol and now The Daily Show."
Daughters Mary, 20, and Grace, 15, urged her to do the show.
Congress is investigating conflict-of-interest complaints involving the federal student loan program and the Bush administration's Reading First program.
Stewart, a regular critic of the Bush administration, will be free to ask about both, McLane says.
The tactic is common enough in Washington, says former assistant education secretary Chester Finn Jr.: "Whenever the hot water rises in Washington, those in peril of poached hips seem to discover that they have a sense of humor after all — especially if they think it will encourage people to laugh rather than grimace at them."
Andrew Rotherham of the think tank Education Sector says the administration realizes it has "a pretty substantial public relations problem and that they need to get out there and try to turn it around."
Public relations executive Patrick Riccards, who writes the blog eduflack.com, calls the appearance Spellings' bid to change the subject: "She's going to let (Stewart) make fun of her, she's going to let him make fun of the scandals, and then she's going to say, 'It's all behind us.' "
— Greg Toppo
USA Today
2007-05-22
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