My oldest son won’t start school for another three years or so. Even if he were in school, however, I don’t think that I would have much problem with the president’s upcoming speech. There are several reasons: (1) school kids aren’t going to pay that much attention to what will be a boring speech; (2) the kids probably get more, and more effective, political messages from their teachers everyday; and, (3) most importantly, the enormous roasting Obama would take after the fact if he gives a politically charged speech. In fact, I wish that there hadn’t been the uproar in advance the way there has been, just so that number three might come to pass — as clueless as the president and his advisers have proven themselves to be, I think even they will have taken the warning by now and scrubbed the speech of anything that might cause controversy.
Even though I am not opposed to the speech as such, I think that the way it has been rolled out is yet another example of this administration’s ineptitude. The ‘teaching guidelines‘ certainly didn’t help by instructing students to write letters to themselves “about what they can do to help the President” (not the country, the president), and the scheduling fail of planning the speech before many large school districts begin classes reeks of cluelessness.
The biggest problem I see, though, is not the overreach by the administration, but the way in which the speech is to be broadcast. My local school district is not showing the speech to students — not because of parental outrage (at least in theory), but because of logistics. Lunches, lesson plans, and other scheduled events are a good reason to give schools a recorded copy of the speech, rather than insist on a live simulcast. An even better reason — and my guess as to the true foundation of parental concern — is the Orwellian overtones of gathering all of the children together, across the nation, to listen to dear leader speak.
If Obama were simply giving a speech aimed at all students, which the Department of Education would then make available to schools to use as they saw fit, there would be some grumbling (there always is) but I don’t think there would be the uproar. Schools could then work it into lesson plans as appropriate, or choose to ignore it altogether, with no fuss either way. Instead, not only does the administration push for all students to watch it at the same time, they actually came up with suggested lesson plans based on the speech — all of which bypassed local control of our schools (school districts and boards) by being addressed directly to school principals.
Given the president’s declining popularity, coupled with fears of statism and federal intrusion as exemplified by the Tea Party and health care protests, it is hard to imagine a more tone-deaf approach to the president’s speech than to force a federal agenda (harmless or not) on institutions over which local control is fiercely guarded. Especially when children are involved.
I think the most charitable explanation is that the administration is simply clueless. Obama and his advisers seem to believe all of their wonderful press, and cannot fathom that some people are genuinely suspicious of their motives. Add in their belief in centralized control of all things, and it is easy to imagine how they would see nothing wrong while their opponents see a scene straight out of 1984.
UPDATE (9/8/09):
The speech is soon. Anyone think that congress will hold hearings and investigate, the way they did the last time a president did this (George H.W. Bush in 1991)?
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