My blog of a couple of years ago admonished an administrator with the Chicago Public Schools system regarding a decision to ban a graphic novel–Persepolis– as part of classroom reading assignments. At that time the “spin” put on the matter by CPS officials sought to isolate the incident by alluding to an unnamed “higher up” in that system who supposedly acted unilaterally. That was then. This is now: thanks to the Freedom of Information Act unearthing various emails and communiques between several paper-pushing central office administrators, the absurd bit of metaphorical book burning was, evidently, a team effort, with the decision agreed upon by a few layers of lame-brained bureaucrats, including the one who represents the Big Kahuna of the CPS system, Barbara Byrd Bennett. The cover up is thus revealed. Of course, Bennett still has her job, maybe even with a raise in salary .

Can you say Peter Principle?

Now, however, with the recently exposed full story of their zealous fight to ban a book that none of them had apparently read at the time, Bird-brained Babs and her bureaucratic cronies will have to go into defensive spin mode again. Alas, this updated tale of some smelly fish in a really big pond of public education will probably not generate renewed outrage. It is, after all, fish two years old.

Cover your nose. In this case, the newly revealed truth, like old fish, sure does stink.