Posted on 09/04/2009 2:29:34 AM PDT by nickcarraway
President Obama wants to use his prime-time address to a joint-session of Congress next Wednesday as a way to jump-start the health-care debate. He would be better off trying to restore civic order that has become dangerously frayed over the last few months.
The liberal interest group MoveOn organized a rally Wednesday evenings in Thousand Oaks, California to show support for Obama's health care reform. Yet, demonstrating how snake-bitten the effort has become, a pro-reform participant bit off the finger of 65 year-old William Rice, a member of a counter-rally. Even though the incident began with Rice throwing the first punch, it's ending with him losing a finger -- and the biter running off -- makes the whole situation a disaster for supporters of Obama and health reform. After all, it's been Democrats portraying the anti-reform movement as the ones prone to intolerance, unrest and potential violence. Rice may have started the fight, but, as the cops at the scene said, his mutilation now makes him the victim.
Meanwhile, conservatives have decided that President Obama's start-of-the-school year message to students is nefarious enough that many are organizing to keep their kids out of class next Tuesday:
The uproar over the speech, in which Mr. Obama intends to urge students to work hard and stay in school, has been particularly acute in Texas, where several major school districts, under pressure from parents, have laid plans to let children opt out of lending the president an ear.
Some parents said they were concerned because the speech had not been screened for political content. Nor, they said, had it been reviewed by the State Board of Education and local school boards, which, under state law, must approve the curriculum.
“The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child,” said Brett Curtiss, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.
“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”
The White House has said the speech will emphasize the importance of education and hard work in school, both to the individual and to the nation. The message is not partisan, nor compulsory, officials said.
The sheer violence of the finger-biting is more serious because it involves physical injury. Even so, it is ultimately an individual act that got out of hand at a political rally.
But urging or threatening a boycott of a presidential address by a political movement is truly disturbing. If parents are afraid about what their children might be told or encouraged by the president, there is a simple solution: Ask that question that parents have been putting to their kids for decades: "What did you learn in school today, dear? What did the president talk about?"
If the answer is, simply, He told us to study hard, do our homework and not watch as much TV or play as much video games," great! If it's something like, "We need to buy a smaller, more gas-efficient car," well, then, that's an opportunity to explain to the child why either the president is wrong -- or why such things can't be right away.
But, keeping a child from school because the president will be speaking!?!? That is absurd.
Why not use the president's talk as a -- to use an Obama phrase -- "teachable moment?" That way parents could show how it is possible to disagree with someone politically without either being disagreeable -- or running away.
The president of the United States -- whomever the person is -- holds an office that should be respected. It's an office to which children should aspire. If a president wants to urge children to work hard, so they can have an opportunity to excel and place themselves on a track for the presidency, why should that be denied to the kids?
If the gentleman in Texas thinks his three children could be so easily corrupted by listening to the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES for a few minutes, then he should just permanently yank his kids out of the school.
Barack Obama ran a presidential campaign hoping to quell the raging political passions of the last few years. Yet the last few weeks, with an increasingly contentious health care debate that has culminated in a lost finger, demonstrate that like an out-of-control forest fire the political wars rage as hot as ever. That the hostility many have for the president has reached such a level that parents don't want their kids to hear him speak is even greater evidence. The so-called sensible center risks being squeezed out by the consuming flames of the ideological extremes.
Rather than health-care "reform," it would seem that the mental, spiritual and emotional health of the nation might be a more appropriate topic for Obama's Wednesday's address.
And, yeah, the kids should stay up to hear that one too.
I would not want the Prevaricator in Chief talking to my kids in a class room with a liberal teacher. And most elementary school teachers are liberal.
As a president, Obama is out of his league; his only appropriate topic is "Hey, look at me!"
Honestly, there would be an uprising of Biblical proportion if Obama tried to preach mental, spiritual and emotional health to Americans because the majority of Americans are realizing that the man is a fraud.
That's not what Obama was going to say. This is BS.
And calling the American public "crazies" isn't going to calm anyone either.
Ramming through a totalitarian, production line type of rationed government run "health care" that will cost taxpayers 3 times more than they pay now, but will receive many times that less, will not go over well either.
He is the hero to every wacked out progressive cause. The fatherless child is now the conduit by which chaos will infect the world with death and despair.
Obama is a con man who respects no one including himself. He also thinks he is more deserving than others.
Guess what, Obama you aren’t.
The first account I read of this incident read that the biter was passing through the anti health care crowd on his way to the pro health care crowd. If that were true, then a case could be made that Rice was at fault for getting in a heated argument and throwing the first punch.
A subsequent account was that the biter left his group and crossed the street to confront the anti health care group and that it was the biter who started a heated argument. If that is the true account, then I make the case that the biter followed the instructions of Obama and "got in their faces," and that the true beginning of the incident was at the point the biter crossed the street with the intent to confront the opposition.
BUT Obambi is a garden-variety con man... snake oil salesman.... and, his chickens are coming home to roost...
> “I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”
Where have you been?
Oh, that’s right. You were probably *IN* the government schools as a youth and han’t noticed that they had ALREADY BECOME a socialist movement.
Not your fault.
Just sayin...
What - does he do this every two or three weeks?
Seems that way, anyway.
If the gentleman in Texas thinks his three children could be so easily corrupted by listening to the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES for a few minutes, then he should just permanently yank his kids out of the school. More and more people are doing just that-yanking their kids out of the Corruptocrat union thug run gubmint indoctrination centers...errr...public schools. In fact so many are taking their kids out of the "public schools" it has the teachers unions and their Corruptocrat buddies knickers in a twist because those children will not be properly indoctrinated so they are trying to shut down home schooling with their BS regulations and laws.
He has been on that often. I don’t regret not having a TV.
me either
Ah, I see the problem. This author is an idiot just like Joe Scarborough.
Children are the responsibility of the parents, not the State. This creep is looking to institute a rerun of the Hitler youth camps.
Screw this Marxist bastard. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see the outpouring of rage directed against these power grabbing scumbags.
Nixon was right, there IS a “silent majority” and the news is they are silent no longer.
No WRONG!! How about we, the parents be TOLD BEFOREHAND exactly what the Kenyan will say so we may decide if it is appropriate for them to hear. These are OUR children, not HIS. If wants to heap his Marxist crap on his kids then let him, just leave mine the hell alone.
Overexposure is a good thing. I thank God that Obama the Idiot is at least a stupid idiot who has allowed us to grow numb to his droning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.