The buzz in Austin is that Texas Governor Rick Perry will appoint right-wing, Obama-hating State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar (R-Richmond) to chair that body following the defeat of Dr. Don McLeroy’s nomination for the position in the Texas Senate this spring.

The Texas Freedom Network, on their blog, notes, as we have before, that Cynthia Dunbar is certifiably wacko:

Look, we were under no illusions when the Texas Senate wisely But surely even the governor realizes that choosing an extremist like Dunbar would be almost inconceivably reckless and irresponsible. Dunbar has clearly expressed her loathing for public education in her book One Nation Under God, calling public schools “a  subtle tool of perversion,” “unconstitutional” and “tryannical.” She has also personally rejected the public school system, home-schooling her children. In fact, she wrote in her book that sending our children to public schools is “throwing them into the enemy’s flames even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch.”

Just before the November election, Dunbar also authored a vicious Internet rant in which she called Barack Obama a terrorist sympathizer who wants to seize total power by declaring martial law. In another Internet screed, she charged that Obama is promoting Marxism by calling for “shared sacrifice and social responsibility.” (Not surprisingly, both essays have been removed from the Web sites that published them.)

Needless to say, if Perry does this, it is part of his ongoing campaign to govern Texas solely for the amusement of one million Republican Primary voters who will likely decide between Perry and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison next March.

Perry’s got to shore up his rightwing base, and a Cynthia Dunbar appointment would no doubt earn him a lot of points in that camp.

Tags: Geraldine+Miller, Don+McLeroy, Evolution, Rick+Perry, Social+Conservative, Texas+State+Board+Of+Education, Texas+Freedom+Network, Religious+Right