When I'm wondering how we're doing – we: the democrats, the left-wingers, the liberals - I check the right-wing media. If their arsenal resembles a pile of Tech-9's, a pillowcase full of grenades, a crop of baseball bats, a handful of switchblades and a stealth bomber, I become a bit concerned. If their arsenal is comprised of merely the empty pillowcase – regardless of how enthusiastically and viciously they may flail it at our heads - I start to calm down quite a bit. This week, I found them to be armed with chewing gum. Yes, it's that ridiculous. What is their gripe? Well... the president has decided to speak to schoolchildren about staying in school and being good students. And? And.... that's it. Yep. Really.
To be perfectly honest, I almost wrote nothing but “lolololol...” in the body half of this article.
Right-wing bloggers are also having a field day with their angry dissertations on why this is wrong and horrible. A catholic mother of 12 who found God – and a husband – at Alcoholics Anonymous complains about the “Obamagenda” (his name never ceases to be versatile) and states that it [talking to schoolchildren about being academically fastidious] is a “blatant power-grab” and a “dangerous precedent for the future”. She has obviously forgotten that this has been a historically commonplace occurrence. Many presidents have visited schools and said many things, including politically charged things and sometimes not-so-nice things as well. Ronald Reagan, while visiting schoolchildren in 1988 was asked by a young, African-American girl what he has done to better the opportunities for African-American education. He replied, “One of the great things that our administration did when we came in here was turn to helping... the, uh, negro colleges and universities.” Can you imagine essentially being called a “negro” by the president of the United States? Dude, that sucks. Not to mention, his speech was thickly laden with policy talk and other similarly exalting statements about his own administration and their accomplishments, his politics and why they are great. No one struck him down for that neither before nor after his visit. Why? Because... he is the president and it's educational, no matter how you look at it, to have the president visit your school. I'm sure kids went home to their liberal parents and said, “Mom, will everything get better if we just give more money to rich people, like President Reagan said?” and the mother looked gently upon her young, naïve child and then swatted him with a wooden spoon and told him to stop being a moron and to go to his room until he got smarter. I'm... just kidding. My point is that parents can educate their children anytime they'd like to; but instead of yanking their kids out of school and preventing them from obtaining any outside information than what can be found in the household, they could allow their child to absorb information from life and then help filter that information. That's part of parenting.
Did everyone forget that we teach politics and government and history in school? One complete schmuck – please visit his video blog for a hard laugh – actually complained that children were being “forced” to write reports about Barack Obama. Didn't any of these people attend school as a child? Didn't they ever get assignments about historical figures, or current events or anything else? Or do we truly expect to suddenly extricate all political influence and governmental history from our children's educational system? This guy's whole rant was ripe with the typical one-note Republican conspiracy theories that are so predictable these days. Liberals run the United States educational systems. Liberal teachers teach little kids who grow up to become liberal teachers and nobody ever ends up being a Republican that ever goes to school. Blah, blah, yuck. Just ask George Bush to see his degrees from Harvard and Yale. Yep, two of 'em. Ask Condoleezza Rice about her BA, her Masters and her PhD. Ask Cheney about his Bachelor's and his Master's. Ok, so some Republicans are educated... hey, wait a minute; why is a Republican making this argument?
At any rate, people are simply convinced that Obama plans to indoctrinate these children with some type of magical, mystical voodoo or other while simultaneously encouraging them to stay in school. Clearly, this president is quite a multi-tasker.
A student drops out of an American High School every 26 seconds. At that rate, can we afford to be this divisive? Obama asked that the children take responsibility for their own education. He told them to work hard. He told them that “every single one” of them had something they were good at and something to offer. “My education, my future,” was the theme of the speech. He concluded that they should wash their hands to prevent the spread of the flu and then the horrible indoctrination of the schoolchildren was complete. Their little eyes rolled back in their heads and they began foaming at the mouths, their arms stretched forward, their fingers curled in liberal-driven madness.
Um. Really, guys? Is that all you got?