The White House posted President Obama’s speech to students yesterday, you can watch it below and read the transcript here.
Yes, the speech was innocuous. I suspected it would be. I wasn’t afraid that he was going to promote socialism or the like. The only thing within his speech that I objected to was when he talked about the government’s responsibility.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, and supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working, where students aren’t getting the opportunities that they deserve.
State and municipal government yes, federal government… no. Education, another example of federal authority encroaching on states’ rights.
ABC reports that conservatives fears proved unfounded. That’s misrepresenting the dissent. Most conservatives fears were not with the content of the speech, I said my problem was with the curriculum and whether or not during discussion afterwards would critical thinking be exercised? The backpedaled on that. ABC’s was being disingenuous in their reporting when they interviewed a gentleman who though Obama was going to promote socialism.
That wasn’t what people were concerned about. Some were concerned about the history of this administration as it relates to politics and school children. For others there is a crisis of confidence. Then there’s the liberal mindset articulated at NBC where they said that parents who object aren’t smart enough to raise kids. Then there’s schools that refuse to let parents opt out of a speech the White House said was optional.
Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier that the concern was never about content:
What is odd and creepy is the conception of government that underlay whoever it was in the Education Department, and it could have been a plural, to have a question, how can you help your president?
That is not innocuous. Look, it is not going to do any real damage. We’re not going to have people chanting poems about their dear leader.
The question is that that kind of thing about a relationship between the child and the president is extremely odd. A child has a relationship with a parent or with a teacher, later a mentor or a coach, but not a president.
A child swears allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands, but not the man who happens to be sitting in the White House. That’s the difference between a popular democracy – which is really a dictatorship – and a constitutional democracy. And the idea that you would want a child to have any relationship with a president is odd. He shouldn’t have any at all. He should have relationships with parents and teachers and friends, but not the president.
It wasn’t the content of the speech, it was the content of the curriculum and the concern that perhaps future speeches and classroom discussion directed at kids won’t be so innocuous. Time will tell.