AOC ain’t A-OK

What would Dr. John Silber make of BU alumna Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

The longtime president of Boston University would not be impressed, I dare say, with the semiliterate millennial who has gone in months from sticky-fingered Manhattan bartender to the intellectual prophet of the Democratic Party.

Which just goes to show you how much the party has changed since Silber was its nominee for governor in 1990. During that campaign, he used to wonder, aloud, why so many illegal immigrants from “tropical climes” were moving to Lawrence.

As if he didn’t know.

These days most pundits on TV, after rolling their eyes, mention that AOC has a degree from “a prestigious private college in Boston.” Most viewers probably assume it’s Harvard – good news indeed for BU!

There’s not room enough to list all the moronic stuff this Terrier (Class of ’11) has said since knocking off the Mike Capuano of Queens, Joe Crowley, in a New York Democrat primary last summer. Landslide Sandy – the modern face of the party, thanks to 110,000 voters, a handful of whom may have even been U.S. citizens, if not taxpayers.

Last week AOC was proposing the “Green New Deal” – page after page of ridiculous nonsense including, in essence, the abolition of all air travel, fossil fuel and nuclear power, not to mention the removal of all heating systems in every single building in the U.S., the planting of “lots” of trees and an end to “cow farts” (her words).

Her no-nonsense stand against bovine flatulence was immediately endorsed by several allegedly serious Democrat presidential candidates, including Kamala Harris, who earlier called for the abolition of private health insurance. The anti-flatulence campaign was likewise supported by the fake Indian, who boasts of campaigning in the “cheese shops” of Harvard Square, which will presumably cease to exist once the dairy industry is extinguished in order to end the scourge of “cow farts.”

Here was AOC’s gushing description of her plan:

“Like big movement moments in American history, to really accelerate our timelines on reaching our goals, young people are putting the gas in the tank.”

Gas in the tank? Er, isn’t gasoline going to be verboten in AOC’s Brave New World? Surely she meant to say “ethanol in the tank.”

Once the outlines of the ridiculous “Green New Deal” were released, AOC began her latest media tour, accepting yet again the fawning accolades of the Democrat operatives with press passes.

Thursday morning, on NPR, she denounced the blowback from the GOP, saying, “The right does try to mischaracterize what we’re doing as though it’s some kind of massive government takeover.”

A few hours later, on Thursday night, even sniveling NBC Democrat hack Chuck Todd felt compelled, after scratching his squirrelly goatee, to ask her the obvious question – doesn’t your scheme to destroy the U.S. economy require, uh, massive government intervention?

“It does, it does. Yeah, I have no problem saying that.”

Oh, OK.

Her co-sponsor on this preposterous attempt to plunge the economy back into the Stone Age is Sen. Ed Markey, “Mr. Frosty,” whose last job in the Dreaded Private Sector was driving an ice-cream truck in Malden in 1968. Of Mr. Frosty, Silber’s pal Billy Bulger used to say, “To a battle of wits, he comes unarmed.”

Needless to say, nothing has changed when it comes to Mr. Frosty – or AOC.

I used to teach at BU, courses in introductory journalism. Even when I was killing him in this newspaper for his ties to the Bulger mob, Silber never tried to fire me. Unlike modern Democrats, Herr Doktor believed in free speech. One day in 1990, I ran into him on the campaign trail. I reminded him that I’d been one of his journalism instructors.

He raised his eyebrows.

“As long as it wasn’t journalism ethics,” he snickered.

Post-Silber, BU has gone PC squishy, like every other bastion of “higher” education. The faculty, if not the alumni, are gushingly proud of AOC.

I believe my old boss would have thought otherwise, more than somewhat.

Silber was almost elected in 1990. He lost the race after blowing up in an interview with a local female TV anchor – back in a time when people still actually watched local TV news.

But the bigger problem, I think, was that despite Silber’s platform as a conservative reformer, he was backed by the Bulgers. He ran the same year Whitey Bulger’s cocaine ring was taken down by the feds – and at least 45 of the 50 Southie dealers had no-show hack state or city jobs.

Despite his appalling choice of political associates, Silber did save Boston University. It was on the verge of bankruptcy when he was hired in the early 1970s. Herr Doktor operated the school like a Prussian field marshal. He once had a bill filed in the Legislature to allow his campus cops to brandish machine guns on Commonwealth Avenue.

The old Boston University wasn’t perfect, far from it, but I’ll still take John Silber’s BU over AOC’s any day of the week.

Howie’s new book, “Kennedy Babylon Vol. 2,” is now available for immediate shipment at howiecarrshow.com.