The Best Research Money Can Buy

Charles Pierce hits yet another bulls-eye. This time, he takes on the absurd notion that teachers are over-paid. That conclusion was foregone reached by a study from the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Both of these outfits exist solely to put a pseudo-academic gloss on what conservative politicians choose to believe anyway. They are not "think-tanks," if that buzzy phrase ever had a real meaning. They are talking-point factories. They exist so that people like Michele Bachmann can appear to be smart. Their "research" is given mainstream credibility only because the people who run America's major communication conglomerates would cut out their own spleens rather than be called "liberal." Heritage and AEI produce "research" the way the Fox News Channel produces "journalism." It's propaganda with data points.

Read the whole post here.