I just want to state my position before I post what I'm going to post. I believe I stated it in another thread, but that one is dead and locked.
I have always thought two things about his speech:
1) that it was not going to contain anything that would impact the mind of any child for more than five minutes, because those who come from families who love him will just love him a little bit more, and those who don't like him will dislike him a little bit more... and nobody will finish college who would not have otherwise finished college because Barak Obama gave a speech on 9/8/2009, and
2) the real reason behind the speech is politics. He needs some good press right now given that his approval ratings have slipped 20% in six months and this is the first day congress is back in session and ready to talk health care, which has been a discussion on very rocky ground. What better way to launch the new session than with sweet, touching
PR from a president who wants kids to succeed? Take the spotlight, put it on conservatives who are overreacting, spend a week tweaking a speech so that in the end it contains none of the things they set up predictions for, and let congress have a day or two back on the job of altering our health care system while media scrutiny is on the conservatives who claimed Obama's speech was going to be something different than it ultimately was. "Those darn conservatives LIED about what was going to be in his speech!"... while Pelosi and Reid get a little bit of a pass for the week.
It's politics. That's all it is.
Here's what I happened upon online today, and it made me giggle.
When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings | Washington Examiner Quote:
The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."....
That didn't stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it "cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."
Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.
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Are we getting change around here these days? I don't think so. It's politics as usual, kids. Politics as usual.