Democrats are shocked and outraged that some Americans are a bit suspicious about Obama’s speaking to their kids today (As a commenter notes below, it wasn’t the speech itself that upset many parents. It was the lesson plan accompanying the speech). As far as they are concerned they don’t understand why someone would not want to marinate their children in Obama’s beliefs and politics. As Charlie Quidnuc points out below, the University of Washington has made Obama’s Dreams of my Father this year’s common book and are spending taxpayer dollars to give a free copy to every incoming freshman. (Note to self: rule out UofWashington as potential university for all of my kids)
I’m sure Democrats would prefer that we forget how they reacted to former president GHW Bush’s speech to school kids back in 1991. They didn’t just express outrage. They investigated and held hearings on it. Byron York explains:
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.
Rep. William Ford, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, demanded the General Accounting Office investigate the speech as well as the cost of its production because he was convinced there was some illegality going on. The GAO came back and said it found nothing improper or illegal with the president’s speech. Undetered by this information, the Democrats continued their potshots at Bush nonetheless and said the president’s speech was nothing more than a “staged media event.”
Republicans could very well argue that the president’s speech today is nothing more than a PR stunt designed to promote himself rather that inspire the kids since he references himself 56 times, education and school only 29 times, and the country or nation a mere 10 times.
