Dear Leader to Address Students.....

[bomelia]

Originally Posted by LURK

C'mon... Obama is the nicest guy you could ever play 3 card monte with.

And that last one there, the "Mean spirited opposition" one... that's contained in the mandated Republican reply, according to MY sources!

The only card game Obama knows is "F your buddy"

I read the speach, nothing in there that bothered me. No doubt, based on public reaction they modified it. It is true that past presidents have done the same. Reagan, elder Bush, not sure about W. Did anyone read that article about how the dems in '91 came after Bush (elder) for doing a talk with school kids? Had congressional hearings and all of that!!

Mike

[VRM]

Originally Posted by BeanCounter

Steve,

The Obama camp did considerable back pedaling on the speech saying the announcement was poorly worded. You do not know for sure what his original remarks were so you probably should refrain from doing the same thing you criticized Jim Greer for.

Personally, I read every word of it and did not find it harmful. The kiddos were off to school to hear the illustrious leader give his speech. And since I don't trust him on most other things I can only hope he didn't try to sneak something in like he generally does.

Bernie,
They reworded a couple of minor things in the (optional) lesson plan. There was nothing considerable about it. Nope, I have no idea what the original speech was - if there even was a different version, and neither does anybody else on this forum. To assume there was a different version is not based on any evidence we have. To assume that there was not is also based on evidence we do not have. And that was why I said that the lesson plan will have to be taken in context with the actual speech rather than rushing to judgment like just about everyone else here did.

Steve

[J. T. Toad]

It's funny CW, I WAS discussing it, (moronic by saying it was squeaky clean when his rise to power clearly was not a advancement based on merit)

You first deviated from discussion with the "no, it's not" response. All my "discussions" have been comments to responses posted by posters.

Pseudo fair enough, I will ban myself, RATHER THAN THE THREAD. It appears you feel I need a 'cooling' off period.

[computerworks]

Thanks... a few days should do it.

[Excaliber]

Heck taking a month did wonders for me! I was able to cut WAY back on the medication after only a couple of weeks.

[cobra de capell]

This speech was a total waste of time for Obama, the students, and the schools. It became a lame speech after it was protested so vehemently by parents when they learned that Obama wanted the high schoolers to show and discuss how they could “help” Obama and his presidency. It was to be another campaign speech to young, impressionable students and no one was thought to object. Now that his poll numbers have tanked, he is trying to revive them by unduly influencing young, impressionable minds. When he got found out, he backpeddled and made the speech that parents make to their kids weekly. What a waste of everyone’s time. What a waste of the presidency.

[Roscoe]

And the question by the mush brained student? "When will you give us universal health care?" That was no setup...NOOOOOOOOOOO.....pathetic

Did anyone catch his Labor Day speech to the unions? Pathetic. It's like he's still campaigning. Telling everyone just what they want to hear.

Can't wait for tomorrow night. Stocking up on blood pressure meds....

Roscoe

[cobra de capell]

Roscoe - I'm with you, tomorrow nights event should be very entertaining.

[Roscoe]

I'm going to listen (maybe) via Mark Levin.

Roscoe

[Roscoe]

Update: Commenter Faraway counts up references to Obama and to country, and finds 55 self-references and four to the nation.

Update II: I’ve run the speech through a word frequency counter and found the following results:

* 56 iterations of “I”
* 19 iterations of “school”
* 10 iterations of “education”
* 8 iterations of “responsibility”
* 7 iterations of “country”
* 5 iterations each of “parents”, “teachers”
* 3 iterations of “nation”

In other words, Barack Obama referenced himself more than school, education, responsibility, country/nation, parents, and teachers combined. And to think that people accused Obama of self-promotion!

Update III: One reader asked me to do the same analysis of one of Ronald Reagan’s speech to schoolkids in 1986. Reagan only used “I” 19 times, or about a third of Obama’s self-references. However, Reagan also pushed his politics in another speech, at least briefly, to schoolkids in May 1986:

We got inflation down, interest rates down, and our economy created over one and a half million new jobs just last year alone. The poor are now increasingly able to dig themselves out of poverty, and that’s been good economic news.

The good news in defense is that our Armed Forces, which were suffering from neglect and low funding, have now made a comeback. Morale is up in the services, and the quality of our men and women in uniform has never been better — and I mean never. As a matter of fact, we have the highest percentage of high school graduates in uniform today than we’ve ever had in the history of our nation, even back when we had the compulsory draft. In addition, our nation has encouraged a more realistic sense of defense needs.

In foreign affairs we’ve kept our friends close and the lines of communication with our adversaries open. We’ve tried to give the world the sense that the United States has a coherent and logical foreign policy that reflects our respect for freedom and our opposition to tyranny.

[computerworks]

Originally Posted by Roscoe

Update II: I’ve run the speech through a word frequency counter and found the following results:

* 56 iterations of “I”
* 19 iterations of “school”
* 10 iterations of “education”
* 8 iterations of “responsibility”
* 7 iterations of “country”
* 5 iterations each of “parents”, “teachers”
* 3 iterations of “nation”

In other words, Barack Obama referenced himself more than school, education, responsibility, country/nation, parents, and teachers combined. And to think that people accused Obama of self-promotion!

I guess I'm not surprised that your word count missed the fact that he used the word "you" 107 times...almost more than all the above...referencing his audience of students.

But that's OK...the whole thing became a non-issue as predicted.

[bomelia]

Very GOOD point Ron. I, perhaps as much as any conservative was deeply concerned about the speech. Why? Why not! Our country has become extremely divided politically speaking. Ted Turner back in the 80's used a cartoon series to impose his views (perhaps Jane's) that the world was increasingly becoming dominated by capitalist environement haters. Never mind the fact that Ted was a capitialist himself whose successful business ventures impacted the world in exactly the same way he was advocating against. Children ARE the future. Indoctrination IS the key. Today, parents are more aware of this than they have ever been in the past. Caution is always warranted.

Mike

[VRM]

Originally Posted by J. T. Toad

Steve, your argumentative skills astound..... I'll play along...

No! You prove it didn't!

You got one thing right... poorly written is an understatement.

If this should be an annual event, I certainly hope which ever president will obtain a reasonable grammarian to write this type of lengthy diatribe.

(considering the released text) Hey O, tell me how many American kids were actually seeking an education in Indonesia?

squeaky clean? That's the moronic statement of the thread. This speech was quite the hypocritical parallel to his rise to power.

Additionally, since Steve seems to have neglected his "equal time" critiques of "both" political parties.... Do you think the Republicans will call for the same GAO inquiry as the Democrats demanded for Bush?

It is amazing how comparatively blind some choose to be.... ignorant fools!

So from your sarcastic response I'm guessing that you are in favour of jumping to conclusions without all the facts? Or is that only when it can be done to make your political enemies look bad?

As for the DNC asking for a GAO accounting - I already mentioned that the GOP does not have a lock on stupid - please pay attention. (And this is for Mike also) The DNC made a mistake and if CC was around back then I would have posted saying so. So is this petty revenge for what the DNC did back then? If so it is just as small-minded and ignorant as what the DNC did.

I find it funny that a lot of you complain about a sitting President making a non-political speech encouraging kids to do their homework and stay in school, but none of you made a single peep when the Lakota High School shut down early, and had the choir and school band perform when Bush came through on a campaign tour.

Steve

[Dan40]

Originally Posted by VRM

So from your sarcastic response I'm guessing that you are in favour of jumping to conclusions without all the facts? Or is that only when it can be done to make your political enemies look bad?

As for the DNC asking for a GAO accounting - I already mentioned that the GOP does not have a lock on stupid - please pay attention. (And this is for Mike also) The DNC made a mistake and if CC was around back then I would have posted saying so. So is this petty revenge for what the DNC did back then? If so it is just as small-minded and ignorant as what the DNC did.

I find it funny that a lot of you complain about a sitting President making a non-political speech encouraging kids to do their homework and stay in school, but none of you made a single peep when the Lakota High School shut down early, and had the choir and school band perform when Bush came through on a campaign tour.

Steve

The only time a non-political utterance has come out of obummers mouth, it was a gaff. Or like insinuating the cop was a racist, both political AND a gaff