A little while ago, Pres. Obama’s speech to the nation’s school children wrapped up. I watched the whole thing. He didn’t address his audience as “comrade.” There was no hammer-and-sickle symbol in the background. He didn’t invite little girls and boys to kneel at his feet, kiss his shoes, and pledge life-long allegiance. Instead, he gave simple but strong advice: Don’t assume that you’re going to grow up and be a basketball player or a rapper, because the vast majority of you won’t. Success looks like a lot of fun from the outside, but actually requires a lot of un-fun work. Successful people like J.K. Rowling and Michael Jordan experienced a lot of failure in their lives, but perservered. Work hard to master subjects that don’t, at first, appeal to you. Pretty good stuff.
Still, the possibility that our children could be unduly influenced worries me. However, I’m not worried about Obama doing the influencing. Rather, the people who frighten me – and I choose my words carefully here – are the fuckbrained morons who kept their kids out of school today to avoid the speech. How spectacularly stupid do you feel right now, Mr. and Ms. “Take Back Our Country”? Is there a chance that your breathtaking ignorance will be handed down to your kids via nature or nurture? If only the reach of Child Protective Services could be extended a little further…
Nice one. Amazingly, Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer, who started the nonsense concerning the speech when he said last Tuesday that the speech was an attempt to “indoctrinate America’s children to his [Obama’s] socialist agenda” yesterday told ABC News’ Steven Portnoy that it was a “good speech” and that “It encourages kids to stay in school and the importance of education and I think that’s what a president should do when they’re gonna talk to students across the country.”
But Portnoy, and doubtless others who were screaming like Chicken Little at the thought of a sitting president addressing school kids, didn’t retract his remarks. Instead, he suggested that the political pressure put on the administration by people like himself forced rewriting of not just the suggested class materials but the speech itself.
Oy, vey! This is why the word vaklempt was coined thousands of years ago.
In any event, the sky didn’t fall, a couple of million kids got a good straight message, some were probably inspired. And the rest of the country, the schools that bowed to the students’ parents who believed people like Greer, will hopefully let their kids see it tomorrow now that they know it’s not contagious.
Way to call it like you saw it, Mr. Fowler.
When George Dubya was in office, I wouldn’t have wanted that war-mongering, faith-spewing, hypocritical president telling my kids anything. So to be fair I’d have to say that Obama should have stayed out of the schools too.
When GHW Bush spoke to the little ones in ’91, Democrats launched an investigation and there was a bit of furor from the press.
ijs.