When I was in junior high and high school the prospect of a President of the United States directly addressing students would have been met with astonished pleasure by school boards, principals and faculty. The fact that most of them could have written his address themselves ("Stay in school. Study hard. Set goals.") wouldn't have mattered; this was The President of the United States delivering the message.
When I read and hear the right-wing loons and their Congressional colleagues claim that he's trying to "indoctrinate kids" my first response is to ask them to take some Prozac; my second is that this country has a lot of idiots in it, some of them elected.
My third reaction is simply sadness that America has reached this point: that opposition to the President of the country is so knee-jerk that something as innocuous as a "Stay in school" message could be perceived as evil.
Thus I begin to wonder: since President Obama's predecessors have addressed school kids in the past, what is it about this President that has so unhinged the right? My reluctant conclusion is that he's black and has an unusual name. The right can't escape its racist beginnings, and its mouthpieces, whether in talk radio, cable TV or in Congress, find it politically useful to pander to those feelings.
Since he's only eight months into a four-year term, I'm afraid this will continue for the next three-plus years, which portends a very unpleasant period in American history.
Posted by Linkmeister at September 6, 2009 10:05 AM | TrackBackI completely agree with you. The next 3 1/2 years are going to be so ugly. No matter what he says, the right is going to scream bloody murder. Someone on another blog said that if he gave a speech telling everyone that they should brush their teeth daily, the right would immediately stop brushing and let their teeth rot rather than say that it was a good idea. (sigh)
And then they'd whine that if we had good health care in this country their teeth wouldn't need to be fixed!
Posted by: Linkmeister at September 7, 2009 11:05 AMI was hoping they'd get tired and go home. Guess not.
Posted by: SIA at September 7, 2009 06:54 PMI find the whole thing unbelievable. Stay in school is a really good message
Posted by: cassie-b at September 8, 2009 07:00 AM