Speech

Pres. Obama gave a "back to school" speech a week ago. (Funnily enough, many districts weren't back to school yet. But oh well.) Many people have been protesting. Some silly things have been said on both sides.

Here is my take: it is true that GHWBush gave a speech to school kids, as did Reagan, and no one complained. It's not quite the same for a number of reasons, the biggest one being the availability of technology for watching the speech. When there is a computer in every classroom, that's not quite the same as having a few TVs for the whole school. More people could watch the speech.

Moreover, people did complain. GHWB spent $28,000 on what was called a campaign ad for a captive audience. Hearings were held in congress. People did complain. (See Byron York in the Washington Examiner for details.) For those who are saying, "I would have been fine if GWB had given a speech," I remind you that people were calling for his assassination, comparing him to Hitler, 35 % of democrats believed as of 2007 that he knew about and did not prevent, or planned the 9/11 attacks (See Jay Nordlinger at The National Review Online for details). I really don't believe that all of the people who are saying this so blithely would have let their kids sit for one of GWB's speeches.

The reason they wouldn't is the same problem that people have with Obama: people don't trust the president to give a non-political speech. Or at least, a not outwardly political speech---everything a politician does is by definition political. And in fact, I wouldn't want to have any politician, even one I agree with, give a speech to my kids without my having watched or read it first. I don't let my kids watch commercials without me, for goodness sake! People are too good at manipulation, and my kids are too sensitive to manipulation.

That said, the moment the text of the speech was released, there should have been no problem. I also think that schools who decided to show it on Friday made a good decision---parents who were interested could watch it or listen or find out about it, parents who were not were shirking their responsibility anyway. I was happy to let Eleanor watch it at school, no notice was sent out asking if we wanted to get her out of class, I don't think anyone kept their kids home.

Eleanor's impression is interesting. When I first asked if she had a speech from Obama in class today, she said she didn't remember. Then, "Oh, yeah, I think we did." I asked her what she remembered. She said she remembered the part when Obama said his mom would wake him up at 4:00 AM. I asked her why she did that. Eleanor said, "So he could learn."

I liked the speech. I wish people would listen and learn from it, instead of flying off the handle.