The days of Obamamania continue to fade away for the first ever African-American President of the United States. Obama has been criticized in the past for relying too heavily on the podium to deliver a speech. Now, Republicans are actually criticizing the content of his speech.
President Barack Obama delivered a speech that was addressed to children and teens in school. The White House had expectations of the speech being aired in every school across the country. However, many Republicans are criticizing the speech as a way for the President to push his political agenda on American youth. Consequently, a good number of schools throughout the country are refusing to air the President’s speech. The White House is insisting that the President’s speech is merely promoting the values of working hard to get good grades and the importance of education. The White House has tried to accommodate a number of critics by editing the written version of Obama’s speech.
“The president’s speeches tend to be [about] what’s wrong with the country and what can we do to fix it, I believe this is the greatest country on Earth, and I try to teach that to my children. … I don’t want them hearing that there’s a fundamental flaw with the country and the kids need to go forward to fix it.”, said Bill Hogsett, a parent from Dallas, Texas. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, said that Obama’s speech would disrupt an already-hectic first day of school for many students and he is encouraging schools in his state not to air the speech. However, not all Republicans oppose Obama’s speech. Former first lady, Laura Bush, commended the President on his speech and said that he was pressing the right message.
The speech is expected to air today in some, but not all schools around the country.
(Avi Solomon – YWN)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
15 Responses
If Mr. Obama were to come out for motherhood and applie pie, it would raise objections. By opposing the speech regardless of content, his opponents run the risk of casting themselves as opposed to the message, and since the message is very “motherhood and apple pie” soundinging, it makes the critics seem a bit dumb.
he is no longer/actually never was presidential
#1 -“regardless of content” – Did you read the article???
It sounds like you are opposing any Obama oposition “regardless of content”…
The fact is America has woken up. I am convinced that had elections been held now between obama and mccain, mccain will win. It was the perfect storm that he became president and we all have to suffer for 3 more years and 3 months. He has zero chance of getting reelected
#3 MDshweks
Yes, I read the article. Here’s the speech in its entirety:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/
What exactly do you find offensive?
The final version of the speech is pretty good. But that is only after the firestorm that made him change it, and the instructions to teachers that were to be distributed. The original announcement was very scary indeed. When considered in the context of his pre-election plans to raise a “civilian security force”, answerable to him, that would rival the armed forces, and his proposal to force every school child to do “community service”, it was even more scary. BH there was a huge outcry, and the instructions were changed, and the speech repurposed as a pareve and inspirational message. Press reports that deliberately ignore this, and pretend this was always the plan, are signs that the mainstream media are still in his pocket.
#7 Milhouse
So what’s the original speech? What was in the instructions to the teachers that was so scary? Where is the press release or breaking story that shows that the speech was changed in response to the “outcry?”
Here’s the “scary” lesson plan for K-6 that was sent out to all teachers (PDF link):
http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/prek-6.pdf
Once again Town Crier lies through his teeth. Go back to your cave where you came from. You have not been here in a long time. Please go away.
Read the following article from the Washington Examiner:
When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush’s speech — they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.'”
Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. “The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,” Ford began. “As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.”
Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. “The speech itself and the use of the department’s funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal,” the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. “The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda.”
That didn’t stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it “cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers’ money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. — while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters.”
Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush’s speech itself, like Obama’s today, was entirely unremarkable. “Block out the kids who think it’s not cool to be smart,” the president told students. “If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they’re stuck in a dead end job. Don’t let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html
Yeah. Terrible. Our evil president is brainwashing children into staying in school and getting a good education. What next? Maybe some propaganda about looking both ways when you cross the street or some other communistic messages like that.
Stop all this nonsense. The real reason for resistance to this speech is that many white parents don’t want their daughters in school dating black young men. By having Obama a black man speak to the children as their leader it encourages interracial marriage. Sorry if I hurt anyones feelings. But that is getting to the bottom of it.
Quote: “It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.”
Really? Google, Twitter, and Facebook? Is that the best the president can come up with for this generation. Waging a revolution for freedom is great. Defending freedom, fighting for equality, and going where now man has gone before are all great things. Are Google, Twitter, and facebook the legacy this generation leaves behind? What about the soldiers who gave their lives fighting terrorism and freeing people from tyranny?
Quote: “Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.”
In the final paragraph, the president uses the word ‘I’ six times – fifty-six times in the whole speech. Obama is promising to do things that are not his job to do. It’s not Obama’s job to make sure students have books or equipment. That’s the job of the states.
Out of curiosity I did a word count to see how many times Obama used certain words. Here’s the breakdown.
‘I’ 56 times
‘School’ 18 times
‘education’ 10 times
‘responsibility’ 8 times
‘teachers’ 5 times
‘parents’ 5 times
and that line they took out that reflected on the whole project, that the kids to write to themselves “how to help the president”.
This is something Bush in his wildest dream wouldn’t think of…
sorry, #14, but that doesn’t sound like a very smart explanation. racism definitely does exist, but it’s not obama’s SPEECH that would cause the interracial dating and marriage. he’s the president either way, and is speaking EVERYWHERE and is ALWAYS on TV etc. ad nauseum.
#!7, I think #14’s point is very credible. Racism may very well be a component in why so many are up in arms about Obama addressing school children even though I saw many wonderful statements in the speech. If Reagan or Bush or Clinton had addressed the schools, some would think it was a wonderful thing. With regards to Obama, no one thinks its wonderful. Anyway, Obama just likes to talk and make speeches.
Racism is very much part of society and Obama’s election does not help eradicate racism. Someone commented that when Americans elect black folks like George Bush, then you can say racism is on it’s way out. Further, his support among the blacks is quite a fickle thing since one can only assume the educated, light-skinned, product of a racially mixed marriage would not fare well at all in the ‘hood’ by the very same people who are big fans of him since he became President.
18- I dont care what the color the president is. I dont want him telling my kids his agenda and how my kids can help him fulfill it. He had (in one of the drafts) an assignment for the kids to fulfill, which included an essay on “how I can serve the president”…. EXCUSE ME??? The president is in power to serve us. We dont serve any elected or unelected govt official. They are there to serve the country. There is a clip out, I am not saying people should watch it, from several people making pledges about how they can help the country… I heard their statements and was appalled. “I pledge to serve our president” “I pledge to use less plastic bags…stop global warming….” among other controversial statements and it ended with Obama’s picture from the “hope” signs. Yes. In a simple thing like this they made it political. They could have just stuck to the “volunteering, smile, do better in school, help others, clean the streets…” type of statements. HIS agenda is being pushed through propoganda like this. Why should my kids see me as “bad” because I take plastic bags from the grocery store?
Other president’s speeches were not as widespread and not as controversial. There is no need for them to do this.