"Just Tell Them...

I have worked 40 years to make the Women's Suffrage platform broad enough for Atheists and Agnostics to stand upon, and now if need be I will fight the next 40 to keep it Catholic enough to permit the straightest Orthodox religionist to speak or pray and count her beads upon."

Susan B. Anthony

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Today Is The Big Day: Obama's School Address / Re-election Campaign

It's an excellent day, I'd say for the Left to examine its intellectual consistency.

I realize it's uncomfortable for many of us, but Anna Belle clears up the spin this way:

Liberal pushback on this issue has revolved around the concept that several presidents have done this. This is the first lie that people accepted. While presidents do routinely visit individual schools, which I still have some minor qualms with, only one president has ever nationally broadcast a speech on Channel One, the closed circuit television channel on which all televised content is distributed to schools.

That president was George H. W. Bush in 1991. Though it’s been deleted from the collective liberal memory these days, know that liberals had a lot, rightfully, to say about that. They rightfully complained about the $27,000 price tag on what was essentially a campaign commercial at tax payers’ expense. Why was it considered a campaign commercial? Because people can do basic math. Nearly half of the high school kids that Bush spoke to would vote in the next election. About 3/4 of the high school kids who will see Obama’s speech will be voting in 2012. And how much will Obama’s speech cost? Will we ever know?

What Obama is attempting to do, just as Bush was attempting to do, was to get a bite at that pie before it comes of age. Regardless of content, the speeches such presidents give, and which are beamed into all of our nations public schools, are speeches advocating for political parties. The fact that the president is the head of his party is all you need to know to realize this little fact.


Thank you Anna Belle. We need historians like you, to help us know when the media isn't doing it's job, but is rather spouting political propaganda.

On the bright side.... the kids didn't buy it with GHWB. Did they?

SYD

5 comments:

  1. Bush 1 wasn't re-elected either :p Skimming news items yesterday, I spotted it was Dick Gephardt that was very critical of that student chat, and for the same reason some of us think it's a bad idea.

    Why did he pick the first day of school (here)as the kids still have their summer brains and the attention span of a french fry :)

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  2. Anonymous8:05 AM

    If his speech turns out to be as dry and mundane as I have read so far, he will lose the kids interest before the first five minutes are out.

    I'm an old lady, long past school days and, from reading the versions of the speech that have been released I can already see the kids going "ho-hum, what was all the hub-bub about?" if they are even old enough to know there was a hub-bub.

    So, either there was much ado about nothing or the WH really cleaned up that speech to get it to pass by the people. Trying to make an 18 minute speech that spread to encompass the interests of young'uns between the ages of K-12 is a sure way to lose at least half of the audience.

    Obviously, the Education "Plan" to accompany this speech also got scrubbed clean of any indoctrination spiels about "helping the President" as well, which is a good thing.

    So, move along, nothing to see here. The kids will just take it as a break from the normal routine and forget it by lunch.

    Lonni

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  3. Anonymous3:00 PM

    Lonni said:

    "Trying to make an 18 minute speech that spread to encompass the interests of young'uns between the ages of K-12 is a sure way to lose at least half of the audience."

    How true. Studies have shown that the average adult's attention span is 20 minutes.

    Thanks for this post, SYD. I enjoyed Anna Belle's essay.

    Modem X

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  4. Wow! It's Modem X!! In my little old blog....

    Welcome!!!

    And to you too, Lonni...

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  5. Thanks for the love, Syd. I just had to write that post because I lived through the G.W. Bush speech and the subsequent pushback in the form of congressional hearings. It was somewhat political theater on the part of Democrats, but they were absolutely right at the time too. I think we have to insist our kids not be manipulated before they even have a chance to reason against such manipulations. Unsurprisingly, I'm oppose to religious indoctrination too. :)

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