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Journalist and podcast host Megyn Kelly lashed out at the first lady on Twitter, mocking her for using her “doctor” title.
It came after a game-day announcer at the San Francisco 49-ers game introduced Dr. Jill Biden as she sat in a box overlooking the field.
But the former Fox News host believes Dr. Biden’s use of the title is disingenuous and nothing more than an ego boost.
‘The announcers for this Eagles-49ers game have just seen the First Lady in a box and, of course, they call her ‘Dr. Jill Biden. I wonder if she realizes how aspiring she seems to insist on this bogus title. Get a real doctor or just work on her self esteem,” Kelly tweeted.
Megyn Kelly expressed strong opinions about the use of academic titles during a 49ers game, after an announcer referred to First Lady Jill Biden as ‘Dr. Jill Biden’
Kelly tweeted: ‘I wonder if she realizes how she might appear to others. One should either have a real doctor or work on one’s self-esteem.’
Dr. Jill Biden appears in an Instagram post from Sunday’s game in San Francisco
The tweet received 4.3 million views in a matter of hours, but only a fraction of the 30,000 likes.
Some of those who responded to Kelly agreed that Biden was really aggrandizing himself.
‘What do you mean she’s not a doctor? Whoopi Goldberg thinks she is. ‘I hope Dr Jill becomes a general surgeon. … [Y]eah, she’s one hell of a doctor.’ Goldberg, March 4, 2020,’ Mark Hayman wrote on Twitter.
‘So my PhD is pretty good then. I never thought of it that way, like owning it longer than all these MDs. I always thought they were the real doctors and I was only posing when I mentioned I had one,” Seth Frantzman suggested.
“I have never heard of any other politician with a Ph.D. or similar degree in the US who is routinely referred to as ‘Dr’… but if it happens, I would be interested,” he continued.
“As someone who has a Ph.D. and is also a strong conservative, I just can’t understand this battle. It doesn’t matter if he is a physician, Ph.D., D.D., or whatever, the title has been earned through vigorous academic study. Find another rant,’ argued Garrett McKinnon, Ph.D.
Some of those who responded to Kelly agreed that Biden was self-aggrandizing and that the use of the title “PhD” was inappropriate.
Dr. Biden has two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware.
During the eight years that President Biden served as Vice President, she was a full-time professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College.
Before moving to Washington DC, she taught at a Delaware community college, public high school, and adolescent psychiatric hospital.
Writing in her memoirs, she wrote: ‘Being a teacher is not what I do but who I am.’
In April 2019, she took a break from teaching for the first time since 1981 to help her husband on the campaign trail.
US President Joe Biden and US First Lady Jill Biden arrive at the Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware on Sunday.
Dr. Biden earned four degrees while raising her family. She has a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees, and earned a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007. she is pictured with Joe and his children.
‘Mrs. Biden taught English at the high school level, but she has since earned a Ph.D. and has taught college courses.
Most of those who responded to Kelly’s tweet seemed to berate her for the mean-spirited comment.
Doctorates existed before doctors. You sound jealous and mean,” wrote one Twitter user.
‘Do you realize that getting a PhD doesn’t mean you’re a doctor? Are you that ignorant or are you just treating your audience like it is?’ asked Bryan Tyler Cohen.
‘dr. Jill Biden earned a doctorate in educational leadership at age 55 after decades of serving as an educator and focusing on empowering community colleges, long before doing so was a fashionable political position. Correctly referring to her as Dr. Biden is the least we can do,” Charlotte Clymer explained.
“When the worst criticism that can be leveled at the First Lady is the use of a rightfully earned title…” added Joyce Alene.
Most of those who responded to Kelly’s tweet seemed to berate her for the mean-spirited comment.
The debate over whether the first lady should use her doctoral degree first arose in 2020 when a Wall Street Journal article criticized her.
Columnist Joseph Epstein, 86, the first lady, 71, ‘child’ in the article in which he said he should ‘think about it and put the document down immediately’.
Epstein’s op-ed titled ‘Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if you need a doctor’ criticized her for using ‘Dr.’ as an honorific even though he is not a doctor.
He addressed Jill as “girl” and wrote that the use of the honorific felt “fraudulent” and “comical” since Joe Biden’s wife has no medical history.
Jill Biden later stated in the minutes: ‘One of the things I’m most proud of is my PhD. I mean I worked really hard for it.
In 2020, columnist Joseph Epstein, 83, called the first lady, 69, a “girl” in an article published Friday in which he said she should “think about it and immediately put the document down.”
Biden’s critics say it’s unconventional to invite people to call you a doctor if you have a doctorate in education because this is normally reserved for doctors, though its use could be more liberal in academic settings.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson agreed with Epstein, saying Biden was “a doctor of education, which basically means nothing.”
‘Jill Biden is not a doctor, no. Maybe in the same vein as Dr Pepper,” Carlson added.
“In 2007, at the age of 55, he earned a doctorate in education, thus earning the same degree as Dr. Bill Cosby.”
Carlson noted that, in 2009, Jill Biden said she wanted to get a Ph.D. because she was tired of the letters to “Senator and Mrs. Biden.”
He accused her of having “status anxiety,” saying that she “decided to cure that, as so many do in our country, with another nonsensical title.”
However, many have suggested that the argument was only made because Biden is a woman.
Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris and the country’s first second husband, noted, “This article would never have been written about a man.”
And Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and former Secretary of State, simply tweeted: ‘Her name is Dr. Jill Biden. Get used to it.’