This does not sit well with conservatives.
Not content with an unprecedented four primetime news conferences to date in his young administration, President Obama now needs to address the entire public school system. And not just for a Hey-Kids-Howya-Doin-I’m-Your-New-President-So-Be-Good-In-School-This-Year-Mmmkay? speech.
You know, like back when I was a kid and Jimmy Carter would come around and hand out balloon animals at parties. Or maybe those were clowns. I get confused. Anyway.
Nope, Obama can’t just say hey to the kiddies and encourage them to do their homework. He has to make this a — what does the Left call it? — a teachable moment. A speech-in, if you will. Teachers have even been given handy instructions on how best to integrate The One into the classroom.
Downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools is rooted in old neighborhood pal and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers’ pedagogical philosophy. It was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge way when the two served as board members of the educational foundation — and it is the Washington Obama way now.
And while the rabid, frothing, emo wing of the conservative movement cries and whines that Obama is attempting to indoctrinate our children, let's take a look at the reality of this.
The President is actively seeking the opinions and ideas of the children of our nation. He is not just encouraging them to stay in school, to study, but to make their voices heard. What other president has offered this type of honest connection with the future generation that is going to lead this nation?
And it's almost certain that many of these children will grow up to have different ideals than his. Many will grow up to be Republicans. In all likelihood, the next Rush Limbaugh just may be sitting in a classroom next week in Iowa and hears Obama speak and doesn't become this zombie, socialist, marxist, communist, deviant that every conservative pundit from Malkin, to Hannity, to Ingraham, to Savage, on down to the three stooges of morning TV ( Fox and Friends ) claim will happen.
But let's take a step back. Is this really such an odd thing for a president to do?
Yes, Gretchen, very interesting.
But it doesn't stop there.
On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marvin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “t o schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes...Do Sean Hannity and the folks at NewsBusters think President Reagan was engaging in Maoist indoctrination? Do Glenn Beck and WorldNetDaily think Reagan was pulling a Mussolini or attempting to assemble his own Hitler Youth? Or is it possible that the conservative media has decided that if Obama is for it – whether “it” means “universal health care” or “stay in school” – they’re against it?
Not only are we seeing another classic example of the rank and very loud hypocrisy from the Right, but there is another aspect of this that needs to be addressed. And that is, who are we to trust with the future of our nations children?
Do we trust them to those that teach the whole of American history, the good and the bad linked hand in hand in lessons learned and goals acheived? Or, do we leave the education of America's youth to those that wish to selectively edit American history, to revise widely known facts, that favor religious beliefs over scientific facts?
