Obama’s Speech to Schoolchildren: Here We Go Again

On Tuesday, September 14th President Barack Obama will address the nation’s school children now that just about all of them are back in school about the importance of trying hard. The importance of succeeding.

The importance of a good education.

And in a school district near my abode, the Fort Bend Independent School District, it will be decided on a campus-by-campus basis whether to allow their students to view the president’s speech.

And parents of children at campuses that decide to show the speech, in their social studies classes, who do not wish their children to hear the speech will be given the opportunity to turn in an “opt out” form.

This I found out from FortBendNow:

“Fort Bend Independent Schools will decide on a campus-basis if they will show President Barack Obama’s “Back to School Speech” on Sept. 14. All principals will be sending home a parent letter with students to let them know about the decision of their child’s campus either today or tomorrow.”

“For those campuses that choose to show the President’s speech, they will show the speech during their Social Studies classes.”

“If any parents or students request to be excused from viewing the message, the campus will provide an opportunity for those students to engage in another “constructive activity” on the campus during the speech broadcast.”

Now I thought that we were done with this kind of stuff. A year ago there was such a hew and cry over the political indoctrination of our schoolchildren by a Kenyan-born, Nazi, socialistic communist that when the speech was eventually delivered, and it turned out to be uplifting and all about doing well in school, that there were a few shame-faced people running around in the anti-climax that followed the speech’s delivery.

But now, apparently, we still can’t cede legitimacy to our president, and I have to wonder why.

And here is what I have come up with.

We are now entering the campaign season and Republicans are chomping at the bit to get the Democrats out of power like they did in the 1994 mid-term election. Republicans have so thoroughly swallowed the Kool-Aid that their hypemeisters have served that giving our president any opportunity to speak is a major blow to their plans.

This is a purely political move in my humble opinion.

A purely political move to counter what is most arguably a very apolitical effort to encourage our nation’s students to succeed in school.

This is exactly what the president should be doing. He is the epitome of what can happen to a person of modest beginnings if he or she simply apply themselves and get the best education that they can.

But sadly, Fort Bend ISD lies almost entirely within the congressional boundaries of CD-22, a district currently occupied by a Republican neoconservative parrot, and previously occupied by Tom “The Hammer” DeLay. The people who live in that district are vocal and political hardliners. And because of that, individual campuses have the right to censor the words of our Democratic president.

And that’s just a crying shame.