White House: School Speech Criticism Reflects "Silly Season"

[last_texas_dem]

Source: CBS News Political Hotsheet

>>>>White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this morning that criticism of the president's planned speech to American students reflects "silly season" and compared school districts that won't show the speech to those that "won't let you read Huckleberry Finn."

"I think we've reached a little bit of the silly season when the President of the United States can't tell kids in school to study hard and stay in school," Gibbs said at a gaggle with reporters, according to CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller.

Some conservatives are considering keeping their kids out of school when President Obama gives the speech out of fears that Mr. Obama is trying, in the words of Florida Republican Party chair Jim Greer, to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda."

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, echoing that argument, said this: "The left has always used kids in public schools as guinea pigs and as junior lobbyists for their social liberal agenda." >>>>

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/04/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5288486.shtml

[phantom power]

1. Is it ever *not* silly season any more?

[drm604]

3. Not that I can tell.

Well, actually it's been silly season most of my life. Lately it's become sillier season followed by even sillier season.

[create.peace]

22. spot on!nt

[Jeep789]

2. It has gone far beyond silly season.

They are attempting to poison the minds of kids against the President and the US government. Not policies, the actual people running it. They are inciting hatred and racism. I call it dangerous and treasonous.

[Demeter]

4. It's Not Silly--It's Disrespectful, Anti-American, and Ignorant

[Karenina]

5. And inflammatory.

[Jansen]

7. but begs the question

if the tables were turned, would "we" want the option for our children to opt out of a speech given by a president with an (r) next to their name?

I don't agree with the reasons given for not watching President Obama's speech, but I do agree that everyone has the right to not watch it if they choose.

[Demeter]

8. It's Part of One's EDUCATION

to see a public official in action for oneself and then think and discuss it, what an opportunity denied if parents take that away.

[Jansen]

12. Yes

but, freedom to choose, right or wrong, is what this boils down to. I'm just saying that this is a bigger issue than watching the President's speech or not. Parents deciding for themselves and their children = good. School districts deciding for every child = bad.

For the record, I will be encouraging my children to watch the speech. I'm hopeful that their school district will broadcast it.

[Posteritatis]

17. School districts regularly decide for every child, though

You don't get to micromanage your school's curriculum and pull your kid out of class for any subject you might possibly find objectionable - at least, not if you're in a good district, as opposed to the lowest-common-denominator ones bowing to the townshirts over this speech.

[billh58]

33. Exactly correct!

The Far-Right "parents always know best" crowd are actually using their children as virtual political protest "signage." This asinine and trumped-up neoconservative crisis is the equivalent of book burning during the Dark Ages.

On the other side of the coin, the Far-Left crazies are comparing a presidential speech encouraging our nation's children to establish personal educational goals to Orwellian 1984 "Big Brotherism."

Political and faux-moral extremism is running rampant in this country, and it is mainly due to the Republican-inspired neoconservative, and religious-right, dumbing-down of the recent few generations. Education has suffered, science has suffered, the arts have suffered, and critical thinking skills have atrophied. Please note that all of these areas of social advancement are considered "Liberal" brainwashing by the imbecilic right-wing among us.

[aggiesal]

35. Mr. Obama is trying, ...

... in the words of Florida Republican Party chair Jim Greer, to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda."

Yet these same parents are using the public school system, which is exactly a socialist benefit.
They need to take these kids out of school and keep them as far away from a public/socialist school as possible.
Enroll them in a private/charter school system, and put your money where your mouth is.

Idiots !!!

[Demit]

19. I have to disagree.

There are more life lessons in this, that children could be learning, than just the freedom to choose. That's the manichean viewpoint that righties always want to impose—that things are always black or white, either/or. It's a false premise.

Parents who insist on screeching about their rights at every opportunity are preparing their children for a very hard life. They're teaching their children that they don't have to get along, that they can make every situation, no matter how small, about the 'right to choose'. Children will grow and think they can balk at every situation, from school into their business life, because of their 'rights'. They won't learn how to pick their battles; when it is wise to save their arguments for when it matters.


These are not wise parents, of course, because they are making this all about themselves and their high drama. They're short-sighted, too. They're forgetting that, when children are forbidden from something, it makes the something that much more intriguing. LOL! The parents might end up being the ones who get schooled here.

[No Elephants]

49. School districts impose hundreds of their decisions on all kids daily. This was political.

[KayLaw]

20. Of course I would.

I don't care what letter is after the president's name. If the majority elected someone that office, of course my child should politely listen to such a speech. The political party shouldn't matter one iota.

[GinaMaria]

24. I never got that option

Ray-gun was prez and as such I had to listen to him in school. There's a certain respect that comes with the office. It's less about the person and more about the office. Ray-gun won the election. Obama won the most recent one. I'm not sure how much of a role model either of them are/were to school aged children, but the message seems benign. Stay in school, seize your learning and growth opportunities, own your destiny.... Can't really see why anyone would have a problem with the message or the office... it's about having a problem with the particular person and his ideology. Ideology shouldn't come into play here. It's a message for children going back to school about setting their goals... any president with any letter from any party who has been legally elected should do this if they have the time.

Keeping kids home from school over a 15 minute speech teaches fear and assigns way too much power to a mere mortal... Geez does everything have to be turned into a dramatic showdown like abortion? Health care and now a stay-in-school speech has reached the same crazy point. What next?

[Butch350]

32. No one complained about Bush's visit to the school kids on 911.

When he talked and read a book to a diverse groups of students.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

41. no we would not opt out to see Reagan, Carter, Bush Sr and even Nixon

they were all elected President like President Obama.

This is purely a race issue.

[No Elephants]

50. I don't agree that it is necessarily a race issue.

It could be purely partisan.

Also, there were some things in the lesson plans that I found a little creepy, especially in light of some of the cult-like posts I sometimes see here, even though I tend to avoid all forums here but LBN.

I understand they were changed after the complaints, but I have not done any comparisons of the original speech and materials with the revised versions.

[No Elephants]

48. Presidents with an (R) next to their name have given such speeches and "we" did not carry on.

BTW, why did you put "we" in quotation marks?

As an aside, when someone has all of 52 posts since 2005, or some similar statistic, I always wonder what motivates them to post on a particular topic.

[quiet.american]

13. Yup. nt

[last_texas_dem]

14. I agree

"Silly" doesn't even begin to describe the antics of these right-wing morans. It's always "stoopid season" with this bunch.

They definitely have a point about the politicized speech Obama is going to be subjecting these innocent school kids to, though. "Work hard, get good grades, and don't drop out of school." And what school would *that* be, Obama? One of your guv'mint-run schools? SOCIALIST!!!!1!

[fascisthunter]

27. and cowardly because they veil it all as something righteous

when it really is the opposite.

[troubledamerican]

46. Mob violence is not "silly"

[missingfink]

6. Parents know what's best

To have their children actually listen to an Obama speech just might present an opportunity for those kids to hear the facts for once instead of the propaganda to which they are normally subjected. These conservative parents do not care for objectivity. Obama can be very persuasive & is a sharp contrast to his dim-witted predecessor.

[HopeHoops]

9. He might tell them that dinosaurs weren't on Noah's ARK!

BLASPHEMY!

[GinaMaria]

25. I don't think his message is intended to be all that earth shattering

or loaded with 'facts'. From what I understand, it's a message about staying in school, doing your best, setting goals etc. The focus is on the kids not at all on ideology or politics.

[Rebubula]

10. Not just silly...

..it is stupid.

I could almost understand the outcry if Mr. Obama was going to be pitching healthcare reform or some other political topic - but he is going to talk about personal responsibility and staying in school.

What is a President good for if he cannot lead ALL Americans of all ages??

[truthisfreedom]

11. Plain and simple: Republicans want to pretend that Obama is "not their President."

Uhh, guys?

He is. He's your fucking President. And yes, he is BLACK. Deal.

[mzteris]

15. if "silly" is a euphemism for

"bat shit crazy" - then, yeah.

[Hekate]

47. I think Gibbsie calling them batshit crazy would have been perceived as unkind...

... and impolitic and he probably would have been made to apologize like the guy who called them *holes. "Silly" is a nice brushoff. ;-)

Hekate

[Posteritatis]

16. And that's the way the WH press secretary should be talking these days. Nice! (nt)

[Altoid_Cyclist]

18. It's been said here before, but if kids become educated then the pool

of future Reptilians really will take a hit. Keep them stupid, ignorant
and above all else, unable to ever think for themselves and there will always be a never ending supply of morons.

[create.peace]

21. bet Bitchelle hasn't read this:

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

[goclark]

23. I want to see the speech ~ I want it to be shown at a time when

ALL American can see it.

Parents can then say all they want to about how "bad" those Democrats are -- the children probably have more sense than their parents.

[mbperrin]

29. Speech will be released in text on Sunday or Monday.

nt

[bongbong]

26. What this is really about

They don't want their children to see a black man in such a position of authority.

A one hour (or whatever, I know it's fairly long) video is more "solidifying" of his position than pictures in paper or short clips on TV.

[No Elephants]

51. I would not be so quick to attribute this solely to race, rather than partisanship. They seem

eager to put the few African American Republicans in leadership positions because they are dying to at least break up tha voting bloc (a goal with which the "church" issues of choice and gay rights have helped them greatly, btw).

[nolabear]

28. What IS good for America, these days?

I mean, from the RW I have recently heard that it's fine a girl was verbally assaulted in school for supposedly not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance (in fact not true), that it's shameful that the 70 year old artwork on a building has items on it similar to those on a communist flag but that it's perfectly appropriate to put Hitler's mustache on our president's photo, that it's okay to vilify a Supreme Court justice for her "temperment" rather than her devotion to the constitution, that the first lady should be condemned for having said she is proud of America for the first time but that it's just fine for the GOP leader in Florida to say he's ashamed of what this country has become under Obama (when it's all conjecture). I know these people are foaming at the mouth barking mad, but my own brain is beginning to hurt and I'm actually a bit frightened. This is the kind of crazy that starts wars, gets people assassinated, makes countries vulnerable to REAL breakdowns. It's like bedlam around here, not America!

[Bette Noir]

31. Don't forget, Michelle was also condemned for planting an organic garden.

How dare she discriminate against chemicals! Unbef*ckinglievable.

[Maccagirl]

40. Thank you for expressing my exact thoughts

in such a wonderful way. This daily outrage is not only stupid, it's dangerous and I am way past sick of it.

[chelsea0011]

30. Not silly, more like hate. This is all about Obama and nothing to do with his message,

which is to do well and be a good citizen. Because if it were about the message, the right is more dangerous than I ever thought.

[cstanleytech]

34. I shall tell you all what this really is and that is

because the republicans have failed at coming up with any new ideas to revitalize their party and its base (in fact all they can do is just so no to everything rather then offer real new ideas of their own as we can see with the recent heathcare reform issue) that their throwing anything and everything at Obama and the democrats in the hopes that something will stick.

[flhxer]

36. How dare he promote a socialist agenda...

in a PUBLIC school!!!

The fact that most of the protesters don't see any inconsistency in sending their kids to public school and being against socialism in any form... that's well beyond silly! ...willfully ignorant???

[SKKY]

37. I want Malkin to give me just one example. Just one...

...she can't. Because there isn't. She's spewing garbage to an audience that has no desire for facts, just sound bites.

[Zorra]

38. Yeah, republicans have taken silly to a whole new level here. n/t

[Doctor_J]

39. More like Psycho Season

why doesn't "The White House" start calling these people insane, which is what they are?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

42. Can't get any sillier than teabagging, chasing young male interns and wearing diapers

The GOP are very very silly!

[groundloop]

43. The GOP (Greedy Obstructinist Party) always amazes me

I mean it's utter BS that they even THINK about holding thier kids out of school because they'll watch a speech by the President of the United States. Hell, I encouraged my kids to watch Bush - afterwards we'd have a short discussion about why we agreed or disagreed with what he said.

But you gotta hand it to the repukes, they certainly stay focused. Stir up distrust and hatred, keep up the pressure, keep the base fired up while the left wing of the democratic party is getting upset that they're not getting everything they want, and begin taking back the house and senate in 2010. If nothing else, they're good at staying on message.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

44. This would be a small apragraph on page 25 of the local newspaper

but we have the RW media and their friend (or should I say fiend) Rupert Murdoch.

[Odin2005]

45. Christ, please stop this insanity!

:scared:

[No Elephants]

52. This has much more to do with health care and partisanship than it does with soiling youthful minds.

I wish Gibbs had been somewhat more fact based in his response, though, such as citing the speeches by Raygun, Bush Sr., etc.

Calling people silly or wee weed up is fine, but then, go ahead and back up your own position with something more substantial.

IMO, Gibbs does not do the Obama administration any favors sometimes.