Are we all too fucking cynical to remember that, as a kid, it's kinda cool to have the President actually address you as opposed to the grown-ups? I mean, I'm sure I knew that Bill Clinton wasn't watching me do push-ups and sit-ups in fifth grade, but I still wanted a Presidential Fitness Certificate (full disclosure: I didn't get one.)

I was watching James Carville and Tony Blankley and various other fossils discuss this phony "controversy" earlier, and I wondered if anyone had thought to ask actual schoolchildren what they think before and after the speech. I hope that somebody does. I suspect they will listen to what he has to say when he tells them that studying pays off, even if he doesn't personally visit every single struggling urban high school in the country.

As far as I can tell, all the other people pissed off about this are a bunch of indoctrinating right-wing nutjobs who are mad as hell that their children might see the President without the protective shit-condom provided by Fox News segments, and I hope (to paraphrase FDR) he welcomes their pissiness. Their kids have been parroting their parents' views every day of their lives, for christ's sake. I hope their parents say that the President is a lying communist when he says that education works, and I hope their kids notice that Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law and now he's the President whereas their wingnut parents have half an associate's degree between them and can't afford any sort of healthcare outside taxpayer-funded emergency room visits and yet their biggest complaint about healthcare reform is that somebody, somewhere, is going to get something for nothing.

Maybe then we'll see some change.

... you're on the side that the other two sides are trying to suppress.

I think it's a bad idea, always was. I'd suggest beefing up Civics 101 funding instead. Here's a quote from a supporter:

“It’s difficult for me to understand how listening to the president, the commander in chief, the chief citizen of this country, is damaging to the youth of today,” said Phyllis Griffin Epps, an analyst for the city who has two children in public school.

There's no such thing as a "chief citizen"! That's the whole point of being a citizen! As opposed to being a subject.

The last thing we want to do, or should want to do, is feed the disease of authoritarian followership; it's virulent enough as it is As far as the policy outcome, the wingers have it right. (Just like TARP and transparency for the Fed, I might add.)

And in the quotation Lambert gives, I'd underline the "commander in chief" phrase. The constitution makes the president the commander in chief of the armed forces so that they will be firmly under civilian control. We've now flipped that on its head so that civilians are to be commanded by a military president.

On the other hand, I think that the absurd labeling of everything Obama does as "socialist" is defanging the word, and I'm all for that. But it's too little a consolation to the instilling the next generation with deference to authority.

... with only two sides, then there's really not a lot I can do about that.

I wrote:

The last thing we want to do, or should want to do, is feed the disease of authoritarian followership; it's virulent enough as it is.

That answers, or should already have answered, your second question:

And would you feel the same way if the address contemplated was to be delivered by a President John Edwards or a President Hillary Clinton or a President Ron Paul?

Yes, of course.

I wrote:

As far as the policy outcome, the wingers have it right. (Just like TARP and transparency for the Fed, I might add.)

That answers, or should already have answered, your first, "gotcha" question:

[Y]ou are in agreement with the conservatives?

Sure, on the rare occasions they're right about anything. If a Conservative says it's raining, do you say it's sunny, or do you check out the window?

I don't have a whole lot of sympathy -- like zero -- with conservative ideology (Reagan's "good ideas") ; that's why I was careful to qualify what I said in terms of policy outcomes, and to give examples.

This is no different than Glenn Greenwald forming a "Strange Bedfellows" coalition with those conservatives who turned out to be sound on civil liberties.

NOTE I should clarify what could be a istortion of my position. You write:

So, lambert: because he's the President, schoolchildren shouldn't hear, let alone listen to, what he has to say?

Well, no. They're perfectly free to hear or listen outside school. Or even in school, on their own time. Or as part of the curriculum. But an "all hands" speech by a President to every school in the country at the same time? No way, and not for any President.

nt

If the O administration is anything like the W administration, as in one-trick ponies, what was tried (and failed) at home is likely to be deployed nationwide. In Chicago, Arnie Duncan's big fix was military schools - only it wasn't really what I'd consider a fix:

When Arne Duncan stepped down as the head of the Chicago Public Schools to become the secretary of education in January, the school district he left behind had little to brag about. While Duncan served as its chief executive officer, CPS received mostly average or below average rankings in "The Nation's Report Card," a Department of Education assessment of the country's largest urban school districts. Its high school graduation rates lingered at around 50 percent, well short of the national average of 70 percent. And since 2004, CPS has failed as a district to meet No Child Left Behind's "adequate yearly progress" standards. In one area, however, Chicago's schools stood out: In large part to Duncan's efforts, they were—and remain—the most militarized in America.

Possibly I'm not looking at this the right way, though. Recruiters are having a difficult time recruiting these days and these schools will no doubt grease the skids right into the AfPak war. In exchange, the "right kids" will learn "leadership" and "discipline".

Back in Chicago, Duncan praised military academies, the pillars of the district's JROTC program, for the "leadership" and "discipline" they offered students. Enrollment in JROTC is mandatory for the 2,100 or so students attending the six academies, all of which are located in predominantly low-income and/or minority areas of the city.

Somehow I get the feeling the spawn of Versailles and Whole Foods Nation won't be targeted:

"For the right child," he said, "these schools are a lifesaver."

Indeed. For the right child.

A story comes up, we react. What's the timing got to do with it?

As for the conservatives, timing has nothing to do with it. They do what they do, regardless. Makes them reactive, but then reactionaries are that.

And of course they oppose him. That's the duty of an opposition party. They would hardly oppose him if he had not been elected, no?

And as for this newly detected "spectrum," again, at least for me like "strange bedfellows." Issue by issue. I mean, because some conservatives want transparency at the Fed, I should oppose it? If and when the Dems stop sucking, the spectrum will fall apart immediately...