Regardless of party identification, presidents hailing from Texas have a nasty tendency to start land wars in Asia that end badly. I don’t really appreciate that trait, but I never suggested that George W. Bush shouldn’t address school children and tell them to work hard at their studies just because I thought he was a warmonger. I found it mildly annoying to be confronted with hanging portraits of Bush and Cheney in the offices of our local public school system, but I never suggested that those portraits be taken down. But my tolerance isn’t being reciprocated:
President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public school students on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.
The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.
Some parents said they were concerned because the speech had not been screened for political content. Nor, they said, had it been reviewed by the State Board of Education and local school boards, which, under state law, must approve the curriculum.
“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtiss, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.
“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”
I remember when President Bush couldn’t be bothered to stop reading a book with elementary school children in order to address the unfolding attacks on September 11th, but I never suggested that Bush was trying to inculcate some kind of supply-side Jesus ideology on the youngsters.
What’s really odd is that this country behaves completely differently when there is a Democratic president. The Right in this country is basically placated as long as the White House houses a Republican. But, put a Democrat in the Oval Office, and the Crazy comes out in spades.
I wish it weren’t so.
