How soon they forget

Predictably, some on the far right fringe (and even some mainstream “righties” are in a tizzy about President Obama’s plan to address the nation’s schoolchildren to talk about health care at noon on September 8th. Those conservatives who are whipped into the frenzy at the thought of President Obama using his office to “indoctrinate” our nation’s schoolchildren seem to forget this isn’t the first time a sitting president has used his office to address the nation’s schoolchildren. On October 1, 1991, Republican President George H. W. Bush pitched his education plan in a speech broadcast to school classrooms nationwide:


Presumably, President Bush’s address to the nation’s schoolchildren was A-Okay in the minds of conservatives, since George H.W. happened to be a good old Republican and not a…gasp…Democrat!

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13 thoughts on “How soon they forget

  1. Regardless of what President Bush did…I still do not agree with President Obama. I didn’t vote for him but when he was elected I figured I’d keep an open mind…but…what has he done so far that has been positive for our country?

  2. This not about speaking to our children. This is about the content of the speech itself and the fact that there was to be a whole curriculum for day regarding this speech and what you can do for the president by listening to your elected officials. Elected officials are put in place to listen to us not the other way around. It is not the president’s position to direct schools on what their day is going to contain or what they should talk about regarding what he said. If Obama want’s to give a YOU RAH RAH speech… Fine. Then just leave it at that. He shouldn’t be making the whole premise of the speech about him. He has backed off of this due to an enormous push back from those on the right AND left. He over stepped his bounds……..

      1. But his tactics are stunningly similar….. So I’m not discounting Rabbit’s post. Obama’s first idea’s about his student address has quite stunningly like that of other “LEADERS.” He has now changed his tune because of the backlash for both the left and right so Rabbit and I were not the only ones to notice…..

  3. You mention “to talk about health care.” If that is true, it WOULD be inappropriate. If it is just a general education message, then you are right about over-reaction.

    However, as seems to be more often than not, you forgot half of the story about President Bush’s address. You cite it as an example of hypocricy. It may have been “a-okay” with conservatives, but it certainly was not ok with liberals, including the then-Speaker Dick Gephardt who said, “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students.”

    At the time, two House committees demanded that the Department of Education explain the use of its funds for the speech.

    Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), chairwoman of the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, said it was outrageous for the White House to “start using precious dollars for campaigns” when “we are struggling for every silly dime we can get” for education programs.

    SO I guess HYPOCRICY works both ways, doesn’t it?

    Also, your video link from DailyKos says “On the eve of the 1992 election” while the address was Oct 1, 1991, a full year before the election. So I guess Obama is giving his address on the eve of the mid-terms?

  4. Dick Gephardt was Speaker of the House?!?!? Whoa what alternate reality did I wake up in.

  5. Keep in mind that many conservatives believe in their gut that Obama is not the legitimately elected President of the U.S. Their outrage is genuine — they genuinely believe that Obama is a usurper who is trying to indoctrinate their children.

    Whether or not that outrage is logical or reasonable is beside the point. People get extremely emotional over anything that directly affects their children. For the administration to think it would be a good idea, in the current political climate, to reach out directly to the nation’s children in the one place where their parents cannot monitor and counter the message was, in my opinion, boneheaded. It will do this country no good to have more conservatives decide to homeschool their children as a way to control the information they receive about our government.

  6. Keep in mind that many conservatives believe in their gut that Obama is not the legitimately elected President of the U.S. Their outrage is genuine — they genuinely believe that Obama is a usurper who is trying to indoctrinate their children.

    Sorry OJ…. Wrong election. We know Obama was elected. You must still be lamenting the Gore loss of 2000.
    As for the indoctrination part of your statement. The left has been doing that for a lot longer than Obama’s been around

    1. E, I did not suspect that you were a conservative Republican, as you identifed yourself above, I thought you were a centrist. The conservative Republicans believe that Obama is an islamosocialist American fraud bent on allowing the institution of Sharia law in the US. The reason they are asking for Obama’s birth certificate is for Obama to prove that he was actually born (and not conjugated from some pagan and Satanic ritual into childhood and then later prepared as the anti-Christ).

      That does not seem like you. You appear to be a regular American with a different view of how to improve the world around us. Am I wrong?

      1. I am a conservative…. I vote republican because it’s the lesser of 2 evils. I’m not worried about Obama’s ties to Islam whatever they may be. I’m worried about the hard left turn the government has taken with him at the helm and Pelosi in charge of everything else. Obama has admitted his socialist beliefs and now he’s trying to implement them. That scares me. That’s not the USA I know and it’s not what I want for my kids.

        I was curious about the BC because it was so overlooked by the media and Obama himself. They let it sit and fester until there was a certificate provided that proved his birth…. I accept the certificate…

      2. Partially, I am a conservative and I don’t think its fair to lump all conservatives into the camp of thinking Obama wants to “allow the institution of Sharia law in the US.” Please. How would you like it if I said all liberals were 9/11 truthers who believe Bush created such a tragedy so as to start numerous wars and blah, blah… (oh wait, at least one now former member of the Obama administration did believe that).

        Anyway, the comments on this post are way off track, that being that this is a very ridiculous post because, if you refer to my previous comment, there WAS critism of Bush Sr. doing the very same thing.

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