Hugh Hewitt is a Finalist for the Irvine School Board

The Cowardly Lion himself is a finalist for the Irvine Unified School Board seat being vacated by Gavin Huntley-Fenner.  Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt has made the final cut of about a dozen candidates and is being invited back for a final round of interviews by the Irvine School Board.

How Hewitt will juggle his nationally syndicated radio show, which aired from 3-6 PM on the West Coast, with his law practice and teaching responsibilities at Chapman University and even attempt to be non-partisan as this board is remains to be seen.  But long time Irvine school watchers will note this isn’t Hewitt’s first go-round at the Rodeo.  He tried, unsuccessfully, to be appointed by in 2006 after then Trustee Steve Choi was elected to the City Council and the remaining two years of Choi’s school board term were filled by the appointment of Huntley-Fenner.

The other finalists are Cyril Yu, Betty Carroll, and Ira Glasky.

Hewitt, best known for a series of books that wind up on the remainder rack at Barnes & Noble (“A Mormon in the White House,” about Mitt Romney published in 2008, comes to mind), gets so much basic stuff wrong it’s going to be hard to see how he’d be any sort of positive influence on IUSD administration and teachers — other than perhaps to move to permanently install photos of Ronald Reagan in every classroom. Hewitt’s been spending considerable amounts of time lately trying to connect Hillary Clinton to Obamacare when any history lesson will note Obamacare was the conservative Heritage Foundation’s response to Hillary’s attempts to reform healthcare in the early 1990s.

I love comedy in most forms.  Reading Hewitt’s Twitter feed never fails to elicit chuckles.  It takes a special person to defend Michelle Bachman, that’s all I can say.  Go to the Right Wing Media and they praise Hewitt for “smacking down the WaPo’s Ezra Klein” even though Klein does considerably more research than Hewitt does and is actually factually correct more often.

As an IUSD trustee, Hewitt would likely be a divisive figure on a very pro-education board where Democrats and Republicans work pretty well.  We’ve noted it’s Hewitt’s second attempt at an appointment; we have to wonder why he’s never placed his name on the ballot in Irvine.

Here’s Hewitt’s official bio:

Professor Hugh Hewitt is a lawyer, law professor and broadcast journalist whose nationally syndicated radio show is heard in more than 120 cities across the United States every weekday afternoon. Professor Hewitt is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, and has been teaching Constitutional Law at Chapman University Law School since it opened in 1995. Professor Hewitt has been a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News Network, and MSNBC, and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has received three Emmys for his work as co-host of the ground-breaking Life & Times program, a nightly news and public affairs program that aired on the Los Angeles PBS affiliate, KCET, from 1992 until 2007. Professor Hewitt also conceived and hosted the 1996 PBS series, Searching for God in America. He is the author of a dozen books, including two New York Times best-sellers.

Professor Hewitt is best known as the host of his radio show, which has an audience estimated at more than 2 million listeners every week. Since its debut in July of 2000, Professor Hewitt has conducted groundbreaking interviews with government officials from both parties and widely respected analysts, authors and pundits. In a 2006 profile of Hewitt for The New Yorker, the dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism told his readers that Hewitt was “the most influential conservative you have never heard of.”

Hewitt writes daily for his blog, HughHewitt.com, which is among the most visited political blogs in the U.S. He is also a weekly columnist for The Washington Examiner and Townhall.com.

Professor Hewitt served for nearly six years in the Reagan Administration in a variety of posts, including Assistant Counsel in the White House and Special Assistant to two Attorneys General. Since returning to California in 1989 to oversee the construction of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Hewitt has served as a member of the California Arts Council, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and the Orange County Children and Families Commission. He and his wife live in Orange County.

Hewitt’s passions are the Cleveland Browns and Indians, Ohio State and Notre Dame football and running.

The “running” passion of Hewitt’s led to an embarrassing lie told to Hewitt on his radio show last year by then Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan who told Hewitt his personal record for a Marathon was sub-three hours, or a pace of 5:36 a mile for 26.2.   World class runners called BS and Ryan later recanted.

Besides Hewitt’s book on Romney, he’s also penned such jewels as “If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It,” “Painting the Map Red,” “The Brief Against Obama,” and “Christian Ambition.”