"They started it!"
As a kid, I was taught that this wasn't a good enough excuse. What are we teaching our kids now?
This week, President Obama made a speech about the importance of education to schools nationwide. Except for the ones that refused to participate.
Refused the president? First of all, wow. I'm glad I live in a country where schools can actually do that. But come on -- pick your battles. The election is over, and like it or not, Barack Obama IS your president. The office needs to be respected, to some extent. Isn't respect for authority something children should be learning? Isn't that the kind of thing Republicans love to whine about? It'd be one thing if the speech had serious political overtones to it, like if he were promoting his health care plan. But this is just the president, telling kids to stay in school. There is no harm in that, and deep down, everybody knows it.
(And even if, hypothetically, the speech had any political overtones, which is to be expected from a politician... you do realize he's not still campaigning, right? He won the election. He's kind of earned that right.)
I think I see what's going on here. Bush got trashed, and trashed hard. "Not My President" was a popular rallying cry among Democrats during his 8 years in office, and there were a lot of people who didn't show him presidential respect. (To put it mildly.) Now the tables have turned, and Republicans have a chance to say "But what if it was BUSH saying this? Wouldn't you be trashing him? Huh? Why should we respect the president now?"
Or, to put it more simply -- more honestly, actually -- "They started it!"
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1 comment:
Cool! I didnt know you had a blog! Here's my two cents on this one:
Nice post, and agreed, plus Reagan and Bush #1 did a speech to kids on the first day of school too, so its a little hypocritical to say that Obama shouldn't do the same thing, for sure. However, what is different about this case and what I did have a major problem with was the lesson plan the White House sent to all the principles for the classrooms to have the kids work through after the speech (which is probably a reason for a few of the schools not participating). They changed it the day before the speech due to the outcry, but it originally said "have the students write a letter to themselves saying how they could help the president." Now THAT is concerning to me, at least. So I think there is definately some 'they started it' going on, but there are also some legitimate concerns too, for some (myself included).
P.S. Love the game reviews man, cool stuff.
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