President Barack Obama's Back to School Event

I saw that bit at the end, invoking God's blessing upon the students and the country. If that's what Obama believes, let him invoke it.

Now, my problem is with my younger boy who will hear this tomorrow: just the suggestion to him that dropping out of school is possible, an option he could take, uh, please, I don't want anyone putting the thought into his head!

The question now is how many kids will stay awake through the whole thing.

I disagree that all of the right had no idea what to expect. The media and pundits knew what to expect because as Obama said:

"Now I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility."

I heard one of the major attackers of Obama's speech spin it to take credit for Obama changing his speech. Republicans/conservatives that are able to separate their political disagreements from the reality of Obama as a person/politician know that he is far too intelligent to attempt using children for political purposes.

Throughout the campaign Obama ended most of his speeches/Town Hall meetings with "God bless the United States of America."

Sorry Kelly, but your logic escapes me (or rather your lack of logic).

So that is how this game is played? Who has said the most hateful things? It has happened on both sides of the political aisle. For every nasty thing you can trot out that some R said about BHO, I can find just as many Ds and other libs spewing as well.

Check it...back in 1991 the proximity to the election was not an issue re campaign laws. The Dems held a hearing not about that, but the use of education funds.

Last, if you are implying that his urging of letters to "help us achieve our goals" is a sinister way of asking the kiddies to help him further his political agenda (and you may not be implying that) then you need to re-read the speech. It was referring to education goals.

Thank you, Les Prouty, for demonstrating once again that conservatism is truly no better than that which it criticizes. Truly you have become that which you hate, Les.

Michelle,

I'm a long time reader and infrequent commenter. You and I tend to agree, but I think you really missed the boat on this.

The early objections had NOTHING to do with the text of the speech. The text of the speech weren't even available for 6 days after the speech was announced.

The early objections centered around the study guide, which was released with the announcement.

The study guide called for students to:

“Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President. These would get collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

There's an open question about "help the President" do what? But given that the chief things political figures, like the President, need "help" with is pushing through their agenda, it's really not unreasonable to think that the study guide is asking students to think about help they can help the President with his political agenda.

And no president, on either side of the aisle, should be speaking straight to kids - without the filter of parents - about helping them with their political agenda. That's reasonable - and right - to object to.

Yeah, the actual speech turned out to be pretty innocuous - but it's curious that Obama took 6 days from the time it was announced to release the text. It very well could have been changed in that time to de-politicize it. And if that's what happened, I think those that loudly were objecting to the speech to begin with deserve a thank you, not a judgmental "oh my heck."

My older son told me that the speech froze and skipped throughout. I don't know what the school's feed was. But my younger son told me he clapped whenever the speech froze.

Let's hope some kids got something out of this. I'm guessing mine didn't.

Grumpy Old Person,

I think if you go read Bush I speech to the kids, it is very clear that his reference to helping achieve the goals related to educational goals, not any other political goals.

As for Barry O, no one knew what goals the kids were to be helping with since the text of his speech either hadn't been written or if it had, had not been released (as kazoolist notes above). Parents were right to be suspicious in the absence of any details, especially given the radical tendencies Barry has already demonstrated.

why was there no requirement by conservatives for bushie sr. to pre-release the text of his speech? why didn't republicans whine when ron raygun peppered his speech to students with his political agenda. why do conservatives believe that there was anything more nefarious in obama asking kids to give ideas on how to fix today's problems (without leading them toward any political path) than bushie sr.'s plea?

speculate all you want about what obama's speech might have been while you drink your kool aid with your kooky group of conspiracy theorists. it's republicans who politicized the event.

hahaha! you people are laughable. the radical tendencies are the demonstrated knee jerking of the more and more radicalized right wing who are scared into a frothing frenzy over a "stay in school" speech by your arch enemy.

Hopefully the White House recognizes that it handled this badly - that it shouldn't have considered this very small irrational group. It's too bad crazy *&$# attracts viewers. I laugh my &%% off every time I see a good old boy say "socialism", like he has a clue what it means. These yahoos are just lucky that their ignorance is so entertaining. Otherwise, they wouldn't be seen nor heard.

north of the 49th, i hope so, too. they let a big-mouthed minority dominate the news. if the fringe right is good at anything, it's making a scene. i think that the white house ignored it for too long while the righties spread ignorant lies about both the school speech and health care reform.

i got a huge laugh from a small group of protesters in a nearby colorado mountain town. it was a group of baby boomers holding signs denouncing "socialized medicine". i'm pretty sure that without medicare, half of them wouldn't be able to hold their cardboard signs up. morons. :D i'd be willing to bet that they bought their cardboard sign materials with their social security checks, to boot!

anony,

"i understand why you believe obama is indoctrinating kids by telling them to get an education. the more drop-outs there are, the stronger your right-wing becomes. the masses of incompetent and ill-informed are easily influenced by rush talk radio propaganda and the like."

Actually if you look back thru my comments you'll see that I really did not say that I thought that at all. In fact I really didn't think there was anything that sinister involved. I just think that Barry's administration handled it badly and opened themselves up to criticism.

Look, education is best administered at the local level and Barry surely gave the impression of big gov't overreaching on this one. He surely went beyond and bypassed local authorities. Heck he even missed large chunks of kids because they were not even back in school. An amateur oversight.

And last, I have three teens in high school and I did not keep them home.

Obama would not deliver this speech to any other audience than kids. Rush Limbaugh nailed it: Obama doesn't believe any of this. His approval numbers are low and he knows it's safe to tell these little stories to the kiddies.

Obama's basically telling quaint myths to his hearers. He wouldn't deliver this speech to America. He wouldn't deliver this speech to another country.

His agenda is "The government will do everything for you." This is diametrically opposed to the substance of this speech.

He doesn't believe in personal responsibility. He doesn't believe in any of this.

He's lying to the children.

Koblog,

You're being lied to allright; just not by whom you think.

This entrenchment in old ideals and inability to judge public character, so common to some of the American population, is staggering to the rest of the world. Fascinating (obviously), but staggering.