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Thinking Out Loud

How dare the president speak to school kids!

From birthers to the “Obama’s a secret Muslim terrorist conspiracists” to now this: The Subversive Propagandist Speech that Will Poison Our Children’s Minds and Lead Them Irredeemably Down the Path of Socialism.

The mounting furor over a planned speech today by the president of the United States seems hardly a cause for such alarm.
Even so, some critics have treated the speech, which will be broadcast by satellite to schools nationwide, as some sort of manifesto against the flag, mom and apple pie.

“This speech is clearly political in nature and has no place in the classroom,” North Carolina Republican Chairman Tom Fetzer said in a statement last week.

“Our focus should be improving our students’ test scores, not the President’s approval rating.”

Fetzer’s, by the way, was one of the milder pronouncements.

Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, charged on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show last week that the president is attempting to create a cult of personality.

Syern went on to compare Obama with Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
Glenn Back urged parents to pull their kids from school the whole day in protest (that’ll learn ’em; who needs education anyway?)

Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer said he “was appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”

Child, please.

The planned theme of the president’s speech: working hard and staying in school.

Among presidents who have delivered similar talks in the past was Ronald Reagan, and most recently, George H.W. Bush, in October 1991.

Democrats complained then that the Bush speech was political even though he merely encouraged students to embrace education as “cool” and stay away from drugs.

There were off base then, but at least they weren’t comparing Bush Sr. to foreign dictators.
Actually, President Obama is pretty good as a motivational speaker and his talk could especially resonate with public school students.

Many of these students are racial and ethnic minorities.

The ones who are typically struggling the most are black males, like him.

If he can grow up to be president, they can, too, but they won’t get there by seeing being smart as radioactive.

The president’s speech was released Monday in time for parents and others to preview its content.

Meanwhile, Guilford County Schools has instructed its principals to show the satellite telecast, but parents may choose to have their children opt out by sending a note to their teachers.

Guilford County Republican Chairman Bill Wright offered an equally logical reaction. “I think it’s good any time the president can speak to kids directly,” he told the News & Record’s Mark Binker.

If the president delivers an academic pep talk as advertised, Wright said, he has no problem.

Make sense to me.

But since Wright isn't shouting at the top of his lungs, is anybody listening?

Permalink

Posted by Allen Johnson on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 8:38 am

What do you think?

16 comment(s)

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GCSparent

September 8, 2009 - 10:44 am EDT

Much ado about nothing...again! Heaven forbid the president want to send a positive message to the children of the country he was elected to govern. What is wrong with our society these days? Thanks, as always, Allen, for taking a story that is getting out of hand and trying to bring it back into perspective.

Doug Johnson

September 8, 2009 - 1:10 pm EDT

If I recall correctly, you liberals went after Bush, after the speech! Not before!
I think what caused this stir, was the original theme was, what can you do to help Obama.
Teachers were requiring students to make posters and write themes call what I can do to help Obama.
One principal in Utah,even showed the students a pro Obama indoctrination film.
Robert Gibbs on tv admitted things like this were out of line.
I think its great if Obama, tries to impress on the children to do better.
Speaking of Glen Beck, he help get rid of Van Jones. Great job Beck.
Jones is a typical liberal, even when caught on video, he says its lies.
of course like all far left liberals he enjoyed freedom from the liberal media.

Allen Johnson

September 8, 2009 - 1:16 pm EDT

Doug:
"You liberals"?
I didn't go after Bush then.
If, however, you read my post carefully, you'll see I acknowledged that earlier episode on October 1991, as does our editorial.
Bush and Reagan ... and Obama should be able to speak to schoolkids without all the attendant drama.
And comparisons of Obama to Kim Jong Il are just plain wacky and out of line.

Interested

September 8, 2009 - 8:50 pm EDT

Doug: Just when I think you can't sound any more absurd than the last time you commented, you go and prove me wrong.

brian444

September 8, 2009 - 1:51 pm EDT

Agreed. It was an excellent speech. In calling on students to forego the root causes excuse and assume responsibility for themselves, it sounded like Obama was channeling our Great Leader, Ronald Reagan. As long as presidents keep the partisan politics to a minimum, there's no reason why they shouldn't address schoolchildren in this format.

And I'm definitely glad he cut out the part where he encouraged kids to rat out their parents to the FBI for counterrevolutionary stances toward health care reform.

Allen Johnson

September 8, 2009 - 1:52 pm EDT

Brian:
Guess you wouldn't be you without adding that last line.

Laura

September 8, 2009 - 2:46 pm EDT

The bawling, braying conservatives get it wrong, once again. It seems like whatever their leaders say, the opposite is true.

DaveW

September 8, 2009 - 3:30 pm EDT

I saw it with my students and it was motivational.It told the students to try hard and there are no excuses for not trying. There was nothing political about the speech. He was telling kids to work hard and get their education. He told them to listen to their teachers, coaches, couselors etc. Basically he was telling them the same things educators tell them. I even showed it again at 2pm on the GCS network.

Christopher Rees

September 8, 2009 - 5:02 pm EDT

Hey Allen! This doesn't concern the editorial. Did you get my message about the problem with "Contact Allen Johnson"? Of course, it might be my computer, but even as primitive as my computer knowledge is, I suspect a problem with your , um, software, or site, or some such.
Is anyone contacting you via this specific mechanism?

Allen Johnson

September 8, 2009 - 5:06 pm EDT

Chris:
I will pass your concern on to our tech people. I'm not sure what the problem may be.

Gymnaseum

September 8, 2009 - 6:07 pm EDT

I think Reagan spent a good portion of his talk to kids in 1986 (in NC) on inflation and how great a job his administration was doing whipping it, on unemployment, on foreign affairs (he actually used those words with youngsters!), and other clearly political subjects way out of the typical "stay in school" pep talk. But no one make a stink, did they?

I am a staunch moderate (yes, we exist!) and do not instantly support Obama on everything, but come on! And the original wording on the Education site asked teachers to CONSIDER (not REQUIRE) students to discuss how they could support Obama IN HELPING MORE STUDENTS GET INTO COLLEGE.

Damn radical.

brian444

September 8, 2009 - 7:41 pm EDT

The truly pitiful things about this whole "uproar" is that it betrays these parents' own ineptitude at brainwashing their children. I mean, come on, you have your kid for his or her entire life and you're worried that some silver-tongued pol is going to overcome that in half an hour?

Look, when I need a Miller High Life 40 and I'm short on cash, I march into my kids' rooms and explain that, while I'd personally like to see them keep their hard-earned allowance/chore money, President Obama and his Democratic friends in Congress need it for their "stimulus package," bailing out GM, and other unspecified "big government programs." And since they're in charge, we have to pony up.

brian444

September 9, 2009 - 1:23 am EDT

And FYI, from the National Review's Corner blog:

You Can Take the Author out of Canada . . . [Mark Steyn]

Following The Irish Times's withdrawal of my non-quote, the New York Times has now issued a rather more grudging and somewhat disingenuous correction. Unprompted by me, I should say. I rather enjoy the idea of the "newspaper of record"'s records being full of rubbish.

However, way out at the end of the journalism food-chain, the herd of highly trained copyists at American newspapers are still excitedly regurgitating the Times's original line. From the Greensboro News & Record:

Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, charged on Rush Limbaugh's radio show last week that the president is attempting to create a cult of personality. Steyn went on to compare Obama with Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.

That's pretty much how the pre-correction Times had it. But over at the Arizona Daily Wildcat Rachel Leavitt evidently felt it was unbecoming just to cut-and-paste, and decided to rewrite — or, at least, put the words in a different order:

Mark Steyn, a political commentator and Canadian author, compared Obama to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il.

I rather like that: "A political commentator and Canadian author." So I'm only Canadian when I'm authoring? Or is "Canadian" a genre like Southern Gothic or English drawing-room comedy? And what am I when I'm political commentating? Slovene? Uighur?

And from the NYTimes "Correction" page:

FRONT PAGE

An article on Friday about criticism of President Obama’s plan to address schoolchildren on Tuesday referred incorrectly to remarks by Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, on the Rush Limbaugh show. (The Media Equation column in Business Day on Monday also included the incorrect reference.) Mr. Steyn made extensive reference to Saddam Hussein’s cult of personality in Iraqi schools, and said an attempt to create a “cult of personality at grade-school level” should have no place in the United States, but said he was not accusing the president of a “cult of personality on the kind of Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein scale." He did not explicitly compare the president to Saddam or the North Korean leader or say that Mr. Obama’s efforts were “analagous” to theirs. (Go to Article)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/pageoneplus/corrections.html?_r=1&ref=...

Allen Johnson

September 9, 2009 - 9:21 am EDT

Fair is fair. The Times got that dead wrong.
Steyn's remarks were misrepresented.
Jerry Bledsoe also brought this to my attention.
We'll need to run a correction to the editorial that mentions this.