C-J Smacks Holliday; H-L Channels KSN&C; Obama not the First; WH to release text; Other reactions

This from the Courier-Journal:

A bad decision

In our hyper-heated political times, this inspirational talk is being turned into a major controversy, with some parents demanding that their children not be subjected to the President's message.

How sad it is that we have come to the point in this country where the President of all the people cannot talk to children about taking responsibility and working hard. Could the outrageous demonstrations of hate and prevarication that have dominated health care forums this summer now move to the schoolroom?

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday has knuckled under to parental requests and told school officials that they must provide alternative activities for children of the objectors. This isn't just sad; it's outrageous.

The President of the United States — be he Barack Obama, Dwight Eisenhower or Theodore Roosevelt — ought to be able to speak words of encouragement to young people without being subject to parental censorship. Have we become so splintered in this nation that we can't unite over something as fundamental as the subject Mr. Obama will discuss? We hope Mr. Holliday has the good sense to reverse this bad decision.

This from the Herald-Leader:

Message from the president

The president of the United States will urge the nation's youth to work hard in school, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning.

Unless you're getting a paycheck from the Republican Party or for trashing Barack Obama, there's no reason to see anything sinister about this.

If anything, Obama should be thanked for using his bully pulpit and popularity with youth to communicate the value of education and persistence.

The right-wing backlash speaks volumes about Obama's detractors. The ranters are wound up after a season of red-faced anger, lies about health care and guns displayed at public events.

They go beyond the pale, though, by saying the nation's children need protection from our president's words.

What do they fear? That in a 15-minute speech Obama can hypnotize the nation's youth into forgetting everything their parents ever taught them and ... what? Do their homework?

It's especially repugnant that Kentucky Republican Party chairman Steve Robertson uses imagery associated with pedophilia — "circumvent parents . . . gain direct access to our children . . . creepy" — to demonize Obama. Robertson plays on the fear of black men, an old and ugly racial stereotype, and he should be ashamed...

Susan weighs in at Prichard:

The president and the children

I wish President Reagan had thought of an annual opening message and every president since had followed his example. It is not just an opportunity for a president can give voice to our shared national respect for education. It's an opportunity for the students to experience our shared national respect for the leaders chosen through our democratic process, including those for whom we (or our parents) did not vote.

Turns out...Reagan did. So we should shine a little light on this from PolitiFact:

Barack Obama is not the first president to address school children.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urged the nation's principals to allow their students to watch a Sept. 8 address on the importance of education from President Barack Obama...

We rated that claim Pants on Fire! ...

President George H.W. Bush gave an address to schools nationwide in 1991, from a junior high school in Washington, D.C. News reports from the time said the White House hoped that the address would be shown at schools nationwide, and Bush began his remarks by saying he was talking to "millions" of students "in classrooms all across the country."

You can read Bush's complete remarks via the Web site of his presidential library...

You may have guessed this already, but news reports from the time indicate that Democrats criticized Bush for giving the speech.

"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Rep. Richard Gephardt, then the Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives."And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'" ...

Republicans, though, defended the right of the president to address students. "Why is it political for the president of the United States to discuss education?" asked Newt Gingrich, who was then the House Republican whip. "It was done at a nonpolitical site and was beamed to a nonpolitical audience. . . . They wanted to reach the maximum audience with the maximum effect to improve education." ...

We also found that Ronald Reagan took questions from high school students at the White House in 1986, and the question-and-answer session was broadcast nationally.

Reagan urged the students to stay in school and say no to drugs, but he also discussed overtly political matters, such as national defense funding, nuclear disarmament and -- in suprising policy detail -- taxes. (Read Reagan's complete remarks.)

This from Politics K-12:

Flap Continues: Rep. John Kline Asks Obama to Release His Remarks

Rep. John Kline, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, sent a letter to the White House asking President Barack Obama to publicly release the text of his back-to-school address to kids, to be delivered next week. (According to this Washington Post story, Obama already had planned to do just that). UPDATE: And indeed, the White House said today that the text of the speech will be available on Monday at whitehouse.gov.

As you may know, some Texas districts have expressed qualms about letting kids listen, because of language in one of the lesson plans accompanying the speech that gave students suggestions for how they could "help" the president, prompting claims that the speech would politically indoctrinate kids...

And this from Justin at EdJurist:

The President's Speech to Students and the Craziness that Ensued

Okay ... approaching the edge of sanity today with the public outcry against the President's upcoming address to students returning to school. This whole thing, the politicization of this event by some, makes me a little sick to my stomach....the common trend I am seeing from administrators today is to a) either don't interrupt the schedule for it, or b) allow students to opt out. I am seeing some administrators on the various listservs I belong to requiring their students to see it - and I commend them for it - but they are the exception. The safe route here is to permit students to opt out. In fact, the new Commissioner here in KY has said that schools need to "provide alternatives." So, as long as you are providing an alternative (hello, study hall) to students or parents that are on the edge of the deep end, then you school administrators should be fine.

This, too, shall pass.

There was plenty of reaction in letters section of the Herald-Leader as well.

This from Jeff Worley in H-L:

Incited perhaps by WLAP 630-AM's conservative talk-jock Leland Conway, who called such a direct address to students "creepy," 25 to 50 parents phoned the Fayette County school district to complain about the president's noontime Tuesday speech to their kids. What are these parents afraid of?

Kentucky GOP chief Steve Robertson knows: The talk is an effort by Obama "to circumvent parents" and "gain direct access to our children."

Yes. Can't you just hear the president now (in a sonorous, hypnotic tone): "Now you kids be sure when you go home tonight to tell your mommies and daddies to support Uncle Obama's health-care plan, OK?"

Fueled by unfounded fear, parents who refuse to allow their kids to view this presidential talk are depriving their children of an exciting, unique and historical event.

This from Dave Woods:

Please tell me that the reporter incorrectly quoted Steve Robertson, Kentucky GOP chair, in the Thursday article regarding President Barack Obama's speech to the nation's children.

Having been an educator for 30-plus years in Kentucky, I am starting to realize why some children come to school with unfounded fears, prejudice and a reluctance to think thoughts other than what has been said to them by authoritative figures in their young lives.

"Kind of scary," an effort "to circumvent parents," and "gain direct access to our children" are statements that frighten me in relation to the president of the United States speaking to children.

Please have Robertson announce the candidates he is endorsing so I can vote for the opponents!

And from Tom Ringley:

So, it appears that the official Republican talking-points word for President Barack Obama's address to schoolchildren is "creepy."

You have to hand it to them. Republicans may despise every good and decent thing this country has ever stood for, but they have the best message discipline of anyone since the American Communist Party of the 1930s and 1940s.

And Dan Wu knows satire:

I couldn't agree more with Steve Robertson of the state GOP and talk-show host Leland Conway. An adult speaking directly to children without their parents present is very creepy. This is why I attend school everyday with my daughter; that way she's never alone with other adults trying to educate her.

As for the content of President Barack Obama's speech, I happen to have a copy of the agenda right here so parents can decide if they want their kids exposed to it.

Barack Hussein Obama will begin the broadcast with a reading from the Koran, followed by a visual lesson on gay marriage using two Ken dolls. Then he will decree a ban on slingshots and water guns then institute a tax on milk and Tater Tots. He will then conclude with a singalong to the socialist anthem The Internationale.

As you can see, conservatives' fears are well founded, as always.

Apologies for the fonts. I used Firefox on this post. It's a lot easier than IE is some ways but I'm having real difficulty controlling the font sizes.

What Would Reagan Do?

"Misguided" conservatives bristle after Dyche examines Neo-Con Republicanism in Kentucky. Do Kentucky Neo-cons prefer political power over good public policy?

This from John David Dyche in C-J:

State GOP's anti-tax stance endangers Kentucky's future

Republicans in the Kentucky General Assembly have conflated the concept of conservatism with opposition to any and all tax increases. This is unfortunate and incorrect. Properly understood, conservatism is an attitude of realistic prudence toward politics and society, not a rigid position on any single issue.

The most recent manifestation of this Republican misunderstanding is in the apparent opposition of every GOP representative and senator to an altogether sensible, and indeed much too modest, increase in the cigarette tax. Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, was right in saying that no legislator has articulated a good reason for this resistance.

Sen. Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, called the cigarette tax "bad policy" because as the tax went up, fewer people would buy cigarettes, thus decreasing revenue. But this argument ignores the benefits of both badly needed short-term revenues and long-term savings from the improved public health that reduced smoking would produce.

Funds from taxing a vice like smoking can be used to promote conservative social virtues. There is virtual consensus, for example, that expanded early childhood education would improve Kentucky in myriad ways. Yet for want of money too little is done in this regard and even existing educational programs are effectively cut.

How did the anti-tax talisman take hold of the state GOP? Perhaps when Louie Nunn never won again after raising the sales tax as governor. Or maybe in 2000 when U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell warned the state Senate's new Republican majority against raising taxes. Both these possible explanations reflect calculations of political power rather than good policy.

Yet conservative icon Ronald Reagan raised taxes as California governor and prospered politically. State Sen. David Williams, R-Burkesville, and then-state Rep. Anne Northup, R-Louisville, likewise thrived after they voted for a sales tax increase to finance education reform in 1990, as rare exceptions to the prevailing Republican rule.

Being anti-tax at the federal level is completely consistent with conservative, and constitutional, principles. The national government is supposed to be one of limited powers, but now grossly exceeds them. Its bloated bureaucracy poorly performs functions that under federalism, to which conservatives at least pay lip service, should be state responsibilities.

It is, therefore, perfectly consistent with conservative principles for one to advocate for smaller government and lower taxes in Washington, but at the same time support bigger government and higher taxes in Frankfort. Some, like state Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Bowling Green, nonetheless suggest that only ultra-liberals could back a budget containing a cigarette tax hike.

Not every proposed state tax and program merit conservative support, of course. Dumb taxes discourage desirable activities, like entrepreneurship and investment. But the cigarette tax literally discourages cancer and a plethora of other costly medical and social plagues.

One can also make a conservative case for expanded gambling, but it is admittedly more difficult. The best arguments are built upon conserving the state's signature equine industry. New gambling, maybe limited to slots, at tracks with some proceeds steered into purses would not extend gambling to new venues, but would produce revenue and help sustain a broad-based agricultural industry now suffering from intense multi-state competition.

Kentucky formerly featured more philosophical diversity among its Republican politicians. Many will argue that is the very reason why the GOP was so long in the minority. Perhaps aggressively pairing an inflexible anti-tax stance with fundamentalist Christian positions on social issues is the key to a renaissance of Republican political success.

But nothing in the conservative intellectual tradition requires any such linkage. And little, if anything, in Kentucky's quality of life or future prospects proves that the commonwealth is better off because of it.

This stagnant state is in desperate need of a new "third way" alternative to its current partisan political gridlock. Pragmatic Republicans with the courage to reclaim real conservatism from the misguided ideology that has consumed it can point the way.