“The speech was innocuous, and reinforced what teachers tell their students anyway.”
So it was a waste of everyone’s time and money. The Messiah trying to take the place of teachers and parents in the kid’s life. After all, who has more influence in a kid’s life, teacher, parent or some abstract being in some abstract place? Nanny State in grand display!
That they have to write articles (and I’ve seen several) exclaiming, “See! Obama really did inspire the kids!! See!” clearly speaks to how ineffectual it actually was.