Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, but What You Can Do To Fight Your Democratically Elected President
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a potential presidential contender in 2012, said Obama's speech is "uninvited" and that the president's move raises questions of content and motive.
Many school districts have decided not to show Obama's speech, to be delivered at 12 noon EDT Tuesday, partly in response to concerns from parents.
So we now apparently live in an era where the democratically elected leader of our country can not speak to the students of our country about the importance of staying in school and working towards an education?! Bobby Jindal wants to push and force the teaching of Creationism in public schools to our children, but Obama's speech is what gains headlines and pushback the country over. When did we enter the Twighlight GOP zone?
What questions of "motive" could this possibly raise? Are we truly worried that our President is secretely handing out Socialist Decoder Rings to all of our children? Do we think that the children of our country haven't seen speeches that our President has given already? These are all really pertinent questions, and I hope people the country over are answering them in their own heads. This is a travesty. With the racial inequity sewn into the fabric of our country's history, to have a brilliant black man and President speak to the youth of our country on the importance of staying in school and valuing education is absolutely priceless.
Where were these folks when Reagan and Bush Sr. spoke to the youth of our country? Even more pertinent is this. If these same folks railing against the President making this speech were told that the President intended to make a speech on the evils of abortion, they would be lining their children up to attend. Now I'm really not trying to make this an ad hominem defense, so let me clarify. If Bush or Reagan wanted to speak to the youth of our nation and encourage them not to use drugs and to stay physically fit, great! I'm not saying those were bad things. The point here is there are some issues that, on which, we should be consistently unified. Guess what? The value of staying in school and achieving our academic goals is one of them!!
I just finished taking a look at the 7-12 lessons plans which can be found here: http://www.ed.gov/teachers/how/lessons/7-12.pdf and I absolutely can not come up with anything that doesn't fit right in with just about any state's Comprehensive Curriculum. This is good classroom practice and curriculum folks. Now I understand that there was originally a lesson plan that included a question about "How can you help the President?" What the hell was wrong with that question? Do we not want to help our country succeed? Is this counter lesson planning tactics brought to you by Rush Limbaugh? I just don't get it folks.
