Republicans Actually Promote Obama’s Speech

Under the suspicion that Barack Obama is not the duly elected President of the United States because he a) was born in Kenya, b) was born in Indonesia, c) is a Muslim, d) is a terrorist, or e) is black, Republicans and other teabaggers mounted a ferocious email and phone campaign to school districts all over the South complaining that Obama was trying to indoctrinate their children in school.

In a place beyond their parental control.

Schools, these people fear, are teaching their children ideas that they deem undesirable.

Some of these parents have vowed to keep their children home from school on Tuesday, the day Obama is set to address America’s schoolchildren on the need for them to stay in school and succeed, in order to maintain that ultimate parental control.

And to this, these lucky schoolchildren are very probably thinking that Barack Obama must have some magical, mystical hold on their parents who otherwise shoo them out the door every morning so they won’t be late to the bus stop.

In other words, to these kids, Obama is the best president . . . .ever.

But really, these parents don’t have a very good read of their own children.

Really.

Because of their frantic and frenetic actions to suppress Obama’s message to them, it only serves to raise their kids’ curiosity. So they miss the 11 o’clock CDT airing of Obama’s speech, so what? They’ll be able to watch it on their favorite video website any time. They'll see it on You Tube. They will download it and watch it on their iPhones.

And never doubt that this is exactly what they will do. If their parents are so against them watching Obama’s speech, the last thing they will do is avoid watching his speech.

In short, this speech could be the most-watched presidential address by Americans under the age of 18, thanks to the efforts of these reactionary parents and the inciters at Fox News.

146 years ago one of the most famous presidential addresses ever was delivered to a crowd estimated at around 15,000. My guess is that there were some schoolchildren in attendance. It was a rather big affair, what with the 15,000 people coming to a town of a mere 2,400, the population of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania back then. Lincoln’s address was not the headliner. That honor fell to a well-regarded orator of the time, Edward Everett.

Everett delivered a credible speech that was well-regarded if not well-remembered. No, the honor of delivering a short but succinct address that became one of the most well-remembered, if not most often recited speech by school children, fell to Abraham Lincoln.

A president, who at the time, was being reviled even by those within his own party.

So if, on Tuesday, Barack Obama says anything completely memorable to the extent that Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is remembered, I think he will be very lucky, indeed. But just as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is remembered by children of all ages even to this day, I think people will long-remember the angst that has been heaped on Tuesday’s event.

And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough to make this speech one for the history books.

And make his address one that the Christian Voltaires of the future will recite from their own high chairs.