“Obama’s Controversial Speech Urges Students To Wash Their Hands”
This headline from the Palm Beach Post on Obama’s speech to students really deserves some kind of award:
Text of Obama’s controversial speech urges students to succeed, work hard, wash their hands
That headline, with its juxtaposition of the word “controversial” with Obama’s insistence that kids work hard and keep their hands clean, wonderfully captures the absurdity of the whole speech battle. It’s really a pitch-perfect parody of the deep respect and seriousness granted to conservative claims about the speech by some in the media. Simply sublime.
(H/T FDL)
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Wonder if the right wing’s foot has triggered its gag reflex yet
Sadly not a surprise.
i think the fanatic right wing fringe finally over reached….
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/orl-loc-maxwell-greer-obama-090509,0,3762186.column
We understand, I expect, that had Obama merely recited the ten commandments, there would have been rising and organic chorus of concern.
Au contraire, Greg, I hear the students who heard the speech all have solid black eyes with no pupils – just like the townspeople who have been put under a spell by the Maenad in True Blood.
Expect all kinds of strange occurrences – they’ll probably form a Cadre and rewrite Mao’s Little Red Book for Obama.
I still think Obama should come out against breathing air, if only to see if any of the nuts stop breathing.
I think this finally nails the right to the Gen. Jack Ripper “Purity of Essence” crazyness. Weird how a movie from way back perfectly examplifies what the right has become today.
Stock up on rain water and grain alcohol today…
Even NPR had to turn it into a controversy this morning on its newscasts.
It would be funny if there weren’t so many swallowing this **** whole.
A wild-eyed teabagger (is that redundant?) told me that if you play Obama’s education speech backward, it says, “Capitalism is dead. Capitalism is dead. Capitalism is dead,” and “I buried Greenspan. I buried Greenspan. I buried Greenspan….”
@Patches – “I still think Obama should come out against breathing air, if only to see if any of the nuts stop breathing.”
I think you mean he should come out IN FAVOR OF breathing air.
Apparently c*r*a*p is a bad word here….
Greg, love your headline.
I’m glad the reaction was so silly because it defused some of the heat of August. We were clicking around some of the news stations at lunch and they interviewed quite a few students. Typically, their response was “whatever”.
Maybe now we can move on the the more serious business for the country and hopefully a plan will be put forward that a majority of dems can get their heads around and even support. Read the “Baucus Foundation” linked by Ezra Klein and need to read it again, but I didn’t really see where the cost savings will come in. Does anyone suggest a baseline premium, lower than what exists today that could justify mandates without a public option?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that education issues are not serious business, they are. We’re all just so focused on the current debate that sometimes I lose sight of all the work ahead.
Of course he toned it down after all the commotion. I’m sure the original draft was more to Van Jones’s liking.
By the way, did you know that the Democratic Congress investigated George H.W. Bush’s speech to kids in 1991? Of course you didn’t because you only talk to each other.
I urge all parents to follow the brave leadership of those parents who kept their kids home today, in order to keep their children from having to listen to The President Of The USA urge them to stay in school, study hard, and never let anything keep you from going to school. Well, except nutty parents.
Attn; all parents. Keep all your kids out of school every day. Never let them return to school again, because you never know when some one is going to say something to the kids, it could be a teacher, if could be Laura Bush, if could be good advise, but you dare not take that chance.
Time to close all schools for ever, because they are just places where children are being exposed to ideas, and we can not have that in modern America, can we now!
“{Of course he toned it down after all the commotion. I’m sure the original draft was more to Van Jones’s liking.”
LOL!
Do they pump those talking points directly into your head while you sleep?
President Obama’s health plan is not a health plan but instead is a political offering to see how much backing he really has.
Shorter Liam: Narrow-minded idiot parents produce narrow-minded idiot children. The rest of us will have to clean up after them.
I wonder who paid for Obama’s address to the nation’s school children today. If Dem’s of days past are to be believed, this should be a question of utmost concern, perhaps requiring a congressional investigation.
From Byron York today at the Washington Examiner:
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.’”
Don’t tell me Bernie…it was different for GHWB because he deserved it, right?
Lemonade out of lemons: the speech was decent cuz we made him take out all that socialist dogma. yay for us.
Please do not feed the trolls, or PDNFTT.
Baby Hugo: The first draft of Obama’s school speech is in the same place as his Kenyan birth certificate.In your imagination.
“# PDNFTT | September 8th, 2009 at 03:48 pm
Please do not feed the trolls, or PDNFTT.
”
darlin, good luck with that. I’ve never seen it work yet – in 7+ years of commenting on boards.
Baby Hugo – Yes, 18 years ago Dick Gephart complained about President Goerge H.W. Bush’s speech to students. I can admit this fact, I know it, and I know we didn’t do it when President George W. Bush spoke to students because Democrats were stupid to complain in 1991. See, we can admit these things. The Democrats had grown up and stopped the stupidity of 1991, we didn’t say anthing during 8 years fo the second bush adminstration when Bush spoke to student.
But apparently Republicans haven’t grown up. You go nuts and then dredge up something from 1991, ignoring the fact that we had 8 years of a Republican president again after that and Democrats didn’t say a thing. When Republicans stop the “it’s only OK if you’re a Republican” stuff maybe we’ll listen more to what Republicans have to say. Hypocosy wins you no arguments.
Actually, we ignored one of the trolls for two whole threads. What a relief it was, at least temporarily.
My granddaughters’ elementary school has no cable feed so was unable to broadcast Obama’s speech to the children, but the school sent a communication urging parents to record it and watch with their children. Bravo!
But Tena, it never hurts to remind!
[/spoken in my best, most melodramatic Scarlett O'Hara voice]: “If we can save even one right-wing troll from spewing false-equivalence nonsense, it will have been worth it!” : )
And of course, if you *do* feed a troll, then before you know it, you’ll feel guilty for going out without always putting out at least a little kibble or a few bones for it to gnaw on, and then you’ll *never* get rid of it!
It was silly in 1991 and it’s silly now. I think we all agree on that.
Note that Obama DID avoid the controversial idea of getting vaccinated for the flu…
lmsinca:
It was silly in 1991 and it’s silly now. I think we all agree on that.
I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately there are some who think that the right has a monopoly on political kookery, and see in it some kind of ethical armageddon.
# sbj | September 8th, 2009 at 04:04 pm
Note that Obama DID avoid the controversial idea of getting vaccinated for the flu…
…………………………
Controversial to whom?
# sbj | September 8th, 2009 at 04:04 pm
Note that Obama DID avoid the controversial idea of brushing their teeth!
Liam: Seriously, dude, you need to get out a bit more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/opinion/02allen.html?_r=2
That, and a sense of humor…
Scott C.
I try to ignore the kooks on both sides and focus on issues and policy disagreements, not always very successfully though. It’s hard sometimes not to come back with a sarcastic one liner.
sbj
Are they going to have mandatory vaccinations that I haven’t heard about yet or is it voluntary still?
@lmsinca; Voluntary, I’m sure.
“But Tena, it never hurts to remind!
[/spoken in my best, most melodramatic Scarlett O'Hara voice]: “If we can save even one right-wing troll from spewing false-equivalence nonsense, it will have been worth it!” : )”
It is actually cause if you ignore them eventually they die and disappear.
“and then you’ll *never* get rid of it!”
Yes and when you play with them they get all squishy and nasty and leaky and need to be put out the back door.
zattarra:
“Yes, 18 years ago Dick Gephart complained about President Goerge H.W. Bush’s speech to students. I can admit this fact, I know it, and I know we didn’t do it when President George W. Bush spoke to students because Democrats were stupid to complain in 1991.”
Moonbat lie. They did a lot more than “complain”:
Here’s the Byron York quote from ScottC’s post which was right above yours:
” 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.”
On;y you and your fellow Moonbats in the Sweat-Lodge believe your own lies.
Aside from other differences, I’ve seen no evidence that GWB’s address was accompanied by a proposed assignment for students to pledge how they would help the President.
Obama’s speech itself contained plenty of material about personal responsibility that was just fine in itself. It also happens to have been contrary to Obama’s entire political program and philosophy and thus was essentially nothing more than disingenuous propoganda.
Several portions of the speech, on the other hand, convey the radical statism that Obama represents and seeks to establish. I thought GWB’s speech was likely unnecessary and imprudent. I have a much bigger problem with Obama’s speech. Children are not in school to serve the President or learn how to help him achieve his radical goals. He has no authority whatsoever to intrude into schools to tell my children or others what he “expects” of them. They aren’t his children, he isn’t their teacher, and neither they nor we answer to him.
Even when he tries to talk about personal responsibility and sound like a conservative, his hubris and his statist philosophy come to the surface, as they did in this speech.
The furor over the Presidents attempts to indoctrinate students with socialists propoganda boiled over today after the President’s speech was aired.
In Sacramento , conservatives , outraged by the speech, set fire to a Public Light Rail railcar yelling “Death to public transportation!”
In Ft. Wayne, Indiana, young Republican teepeed a public park. “Socialism is wrong”, said one young person as he went at the drinking fountain with a hammer.
In Dallas, Texas, angry patrons burnt books at the public library and spray painted the words “public libraries are evil”
Police and firefighters In Boise, Idaho, were pelted with eggs by an enraged mob who worried that public servants were putting private guards and “for profit” firemen at a disadvantage.
And at Cape Canaveral Florida, unhappy residents picketed a NASA office with signs saying
“Get government out of Space” and “bring back our flag from the moon”
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