ROCK HILL, S.C. — The other day, Willard Romney went to Hobbs, New Mexico, and made a remarkable assertion. He said that "America invented education." This, of course, is all my balls. Nobody knows who "invented" education. In the strictest sense of the word, Papa Zog who taught little Zogling to hit the big furry thing with a rock "invented" education. Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, and all of them thought you'd fall off the end of the world shortly past the Pillars of Hercules. Thomas Aquinas wasn't exactly an apple salesman. The University of Oxford opened for bid'ness at the end of the 11th century and, well, you get the idea.

No, what America invented was public education, the notion that the son of Willard Romney's gardener should have the same right to the world's knowledge as Willard Romney did back in his hippie-landscaping days. And if you think Romney left out the "public" part accidentally, you're fooling yourself.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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