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Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Hopes, Fears of an 'Obama Effect'
By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services
After decades of criticizing public schools as places where hardly
anybody learns anything, suddenly conservatives are upset that a 15-
to 20-minute webcast in schools might teach too much.
That's because the webcast is by President Barack Obama. His critics fear he might teach something that they'd rather not have our schoolchildren hear. Seldom has so much power been imagined for a short video presentation that does not carry an X-rating.
The quarrel began after Education Secretary Arne Duncan e-mailed principals that the president would speak on Tuesday over the Internet, on C-SPAN and via satellite "directly to the nation's schoolchildren about persisting and succeeding in school."
Somehow that useful message, coming amid the heat of an unrelated health care debate, was immediately interpreted by Obama's conservative critics as a sneaky way to enlist children into promoting his political agenda.
Or, as Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, put it, "As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology."
Mercy. It takes a different planet from the one on which I live to find "persisting and succeeding in school" to be socialist ideology. But conservative pundits were just getting warmed up to the biggest political panic since former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused the House health care bill of mandating "death panels."
Blogger Michelle Malkin, accusing schools and teachers unions as using students as "little lobbyists." David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, blogged that the Obama administration is "trying to push its president-worship onto 50 million captive schoolchildren." American Values President Gary Bauer declared, "Tuesday may be a good day to sit in on your child's classes."
The Education Department didn't help matters with the darkly suggestive wording that someone, dare I say, stupidly included in a set of classroom activities posted on the department's Web site to accompany the speech.
It suggested that students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." A White House spokesman acknowledged that the original was "inartfully worded." Translation from government-ese: Somebody messed up.
Out went the old wording. The updated version asks students to "write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals." Good. Ask not what you can do for the president, children. Ask what you can do to help your own futures.
Despite the rewrite, the panic took on a life of its own, fanned like a California forest fire in the hot winds of bloggers and talk show commentators. Some schools pulled the plug on the speech. They cited parents' complaints about what the speech might say. Some parents said they would pull their kids out of school, as if the speech were a swine flu virus.
Yet, as much as some observers suspect bias in this backlash against the nation's first black president, I don't think race has much to do with it. Presidents Ronald Reagan in 1988 and George H.W. Bush in 1991 gave similar televised addresses, amid some criticism from Democrats about propagandizing on the taxpayers' dime. That's politics.
Besides, values do matter. If conservatives heard that Bill Cosby, for example, were delivering the address, I think the right would be delighted. I cannot guarantee that all of his political views would please conservative stalwarts. But his five-year-old crusade for self-help and personal responsibility has given voice to values on which the Obama left and the Malkin right can find rare agreement: the importance of good parenting.
Here I speak from hard-learned experience. Politics may come and go, but the day-to-day job of raising kids brings out the conservatism in us all.
That's why a lot of parents welcome Obama's messages to kids. Many hope for what some educators have called an "Obama effect," the role modeling that might help our offspring to expand their definition of "cool" to include academic excellence, family obligations, parental responsibilities and, heaven help us, pulling their pants up to full mast.
And for African American children, in particular, there's another important message in Obama's famous unflappability: Don't let racism or suspicions of racism dim your determination to succeed.
Obama received a huge political boost last year when he espoused such Cosby-esque values that Americans tend to share across racial and party lines. Maybe that's what his conservative rivals are really worried about.
========
E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.
(c) 2008 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 09/06/2009
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Posted Comments:
09-13-2009 03:08
JCE wrote:
sssssssss
So, when Bush was addressing the congress, and was telling the truth, which racist on the left called him a liar? Any so called example you come up with will show Bush either lying, being misinformed, or getting far more respect from the left than Obama gets from the right. What you call confronting is a different story. The right wasn't happy with, and not always respectful at all. Bush didn't always act respectful. But no congress member stood up and disrespected him like they did and do Obama. Them's the facts, ma'am. The right continues to set new precedence in such disgraceful behavior, lowing the bar, and teaching the left and the country how to go farther away from the proper path. Good thing the left is such a slow learner.
09-12-2009 09:40
ssss wrote:
Your wrong JCE the most disrespected president ever was GWB. Thats when the sleezy politics came out FROM THE LEFT. They taught the rest of us the length they will go to. To try to change it to the republicans is just the usual left smoke and mirrors. The left does it and when it happens back they run crying and say its the worst. What people dont like is his vision of socialism, if you want to live in lalaland that everything is because he's black, its the same ole libbie line, VICTOM VICTOM VICTOM
09-11-2009 01:16
JCE wrote:
Some people trust him, some people don't. Usual story there. Some people don't trust the schools, and what they think of as left. Many people like that left leaning stuff. Our history has been consistently one of change, and human rights, typically brought on by the left. When the right still adhered to the old traditional ideas, they were able to act as a check and a balance. They have ceased to function like that. As far as apologizing, both sides seem to think we have things the other side did to apologize for, both could be wrong, but both are probably right to some degree. The president speaks for the country, and if an apology is due, he should be the one to give it. Had you really listened to his speech last night, you wouldn't say he never says anything good about the US. He focused a good bit on our good side, and our strengths. He actually does that a lot, you just have to want to hear everything, not just bad, or imagined bad. Yes, just like Bush, he has done a lot for the special interests, but for different ones at times. As far as the CIA, it has gotten so far out of line under Bush, that it must be straightened out. Hopefully, enough of the country will want a return to law, order, security and freedom to support Obama in that regard. Not everyone is against Obama, even with the lies and distortions, most of which have been debunked, but the damage is done. Seniors have believed the lies, as have a lot of the fringe. It is dividing us, especially the racial polarization. It is coming out, who in their right mind would want to admit it.
09-11-2009 01:11
JCE wrote:
As far as his skin color, all one has to do is look at how people are treating him compared to other presidents. The amount of disrespect to his office, to his family, and to him, is unprecedented in our history. The behavior of the republicans is a national disgrace, the laughingstock of the world. Wilson and Cantor were so disrespectful. But it is an obvious pattern that was started before his presidency. Lack of respect for the other party has been increasing. Hate crimes and racism are up. Disrespect for law,order, ethics and morals are increasing at an alarming rate. Disrespect was shown in the last campaign worse than usual. Then when Obama was elected, it really began. The anger at having Obama elected was far worse than any other president. Even when Gore had the election stolen, there wasn't the anger. Business as usual. But for Obama. The birthers, the baggers, the death panels, the concentration camps, the lies and distortions, the threats, people calling from the pulpit for his death, the right wing media has never been so disrespectful to a president, nor the desperation and lies of the right wing propaganda machine. There is so little difference between Obama and other presidents, even Bush, altho Obama is more honorable, more bipartisan, more transparent, and more of his own man. This last week disrespecting him, the school children, the schools, and the country was overboard. The blatant republican disrespect at the speech proves it. The only difference between Obama and the rest, he is black. Racists come in two kinds, those who are proud of it, and those who deny it. And no party has ever disrespected a white man like that.
09-10-2009 10:26
sssssss wrote:
I didnt have any problem with the speech he gave to the kids. I do think he probably changed it but thats just my opinion. The problem came with the after lessons. People dont trust him JCE and they dont trust the schools and there left leaning ways. What we do not like about O is his socialist, redistrubution of money policies. His apologizing around the world for us and never giving the US any compliments. He picks at our flaws but never shows our good side. He has his own set of special interests and has flowered them with prizes since his election. Gave the UAW car companies. He has czars that are iffy and have not been looked at. His is very secretive dispite him keep saying he wants transparency. He is tearing down our CIA just like every other dems does when they get in office. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS SKIN COLOR.
Why do you keep saying that? And I hate to remind everyone but he is half white to, even if he doesnt ever acknowledge that. So get of the black thing JCE, if you dont have better arguments to his policies then you should be quiet.
Why do you keep saying that? And I hate to remind everyone but he is half white to, even if he doesnt ever acknowledge that. So get of the black thing JCE, if you dont have better arguments to his policies then you should be quiet.
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