For those of you that missed Mike Huckabee’s speech last night, let me offer you the strangest part of it.
Allow me to tell you about someone who understands this type of sacrifice better than anyone.
On the first day of school in 2005, Martha Cothren, a teacher at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock, was determined that her students would not take their education or their privilege as Americans for granted. With the principal’s permission, she removed all the desks from her classroom. The students entered the empty room and asked, “Mrs. Cothren, where are our desks?” “You get a desk when you tell me how you earn it,” she replied.
“Making good grades?” asked one student.
“You ought to make good grades, but that won’t get you a desk,” Martha responded.
“I guess we have to behave,” offered another.
“You will behave in my class,” Mrs. Cothren retorted, “but that won’t get you a desk either.”
No one in first period guessed right. Same for second period.
By lunch, the buzz was all over campus… Mrs. Cothren had flipped out ….wouldn’t let her students have a desk. Kids had used their cell phones and called their parents.
By early afternoon, all four of the local network TV affiliates had camera crews at the school to report on the teacher who wouldn’t let her students have a desk unless they could tell her how they earned it. By the final period, no one had guessed correctly.
As the students filed in, Martha Cothren said, “Well, I didn’t think you would figure it out, so I’ll have to tell you.”
Martha opened the door of her classroom. In walked 27 veterans, some wearing uniforms from years gone by, but each one carrying a school desk.
As they carefully and quietly arranged the desks in neat rows, Martha said, “You don’t have to earn your desks. These guys already did.
“They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so you could have the freedom you have.
“No one charged you for your desk. But it wasn’t really free. These guys bought it for you. And I hope you never forget it. “
I wish we all would remember that being American is not just about the freedom we have. It’s about those who gave it to us.
Ladies and gentlemen, John McCain is one of those people who helped buy the freedom that we enjoy and the school desks we had.
It’s my honor to do what I can to help him have a desk that he has earned in the Oval Office.
You can watch this on YouTube. Just scroll ahead to the four-minute mark:
You’ll notice that Mike Huckabee diverged somewhat from the script and said, “John McCain helped me have a schooldesk.” I thought that was the oddest and funniest line of the whole night. Huckabee is nuts.
Well, it’s kind of a heartwarming story.
You know, that “strange uncle that tells the rambling bullshit stories when drunk but you still want to humor him” kinda story.
It reminded me of the Chewbacca Defense. It..did…not…make…sense.
The story just struck me as bizarre and manipulative (making little kids stand all day without their desks). Steven D’s diary points out clearly why it is wrong because the Constitution grants us our rights. But the flip-side is why this skewed narrative was told to the Republican convention and why it appeals to the base.
It’s all about Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism not only promotes the false narrative that ours was founded as a Christian nation, but it conflates Christian and patriotic symbols. That teacher just hit the little kids with a secular version of redemption:
Sola Gratia/Sola Fides – there is nothing you have done or could do to earn your redemption (freedom), it has been done for you.
Sacrificial Atonement – only through the blood of others who have willingly sacrificed for you, has your redemption (freedom) been purchased.
I guess the kids were lucky that they didn’t have to declare their faith in the physical resurrection of their desks (after they had disappeared for three hours) in order to get them back.
with Cindy’s money and a few sacrifices of $500 pair shoes, they could have bought a new school. Vanity Fair puts Cindy’s outfit on Monday night at $300,000.
And speaking of money, the Palin pick was good for donations.
For Obama-Biden – Ambinder
And the shame of that dress is that with a 300K price tag is was still a really putrid color, and didn’t seem to fit well.
the $300k outfit was gold colored, and $280k of it was for diamond earrings.
But I agree about the putrid green outfit.
The colour was horrid – looked like a failed attempt to match Hillary’s orange silk pantsuite – it was really strange looking, and the skirt didn’t fall right. I wouldn’t have been caught dead in it.
John McCain bought some fake soldiers too…
I miseed that line. I DID hear the one about when Obama went to europe, he brought back “European values”, which huckster said in a super-scary dracula voice.
I was reminded on that simpsons episode, where homer does a political ad for marge, accusing her opponents of being “from out of state!”
i thought it was Romney who said that line about European values.
what is unnerving is how Republicans use the Military and Veterans on stage, but when it comes to giving veteran Benefits..like the recent New GI Bill.. Republicans vote against claiming poverty.
They don’t even use real soldiers on stage, apparently.