The dust up over the president giving a good and simple message to students this week just strikes me as the most bizarre thing I’ve seen in a summer of pretty bizarre political behavior. The fact the so many people are now seeing propaganda in the most innocent places really tells me something about the political mood in the country right now, it is not good at all.
The question is this, if this were George W. Bush who were telling kids to stay in school and think about how they can be better citizens, would the response be anything close? How about Ronald Reagan at the height of the “Morning in America” rhetoric, would we see that as propaganda? It seems to me like the general rule is that it is awesome for the president to address and inspire students, he is the president after all. Of course everything he says is going to be completely cookie-cutter, but it’s still awesome.
I do suspect a double standard. This was confirmed in my mind when I saw Rick Santorum on Fox News last night addressing the issue. He said that it is in fact this president the creates the problem, he referenced George H.W. Bush’s address to students and said that was fine because he was a “grandfather type” and not an inspirational speaker. I kid you not.
So are adults just getting all paranoid because of the current political struggles or are Republicans really just not keen on their kids hearing from a Democratic president?