Well, I GUESS it’s a little better than sitting on your ass eating cheetos all day. (At least they get out of the house)
Changing the lesson plan was not evidence they mis-spoke. It was an attempt at clarification and perhaps a futile one given the seeming eagerness to believe the lies. Some public figure, hopefully not associated directly with the White House needs to try and patiently but directly point out the completely unnecessary over reaction and hysterics that is being encouraged by the fear mongers for political reasons and how this type of divisive action is hurting our country rather than helping.
I agree with you on this. We won’t stop the divisiveness by being just as divisive as the opposition. I think we can firmly point out the difference between political and philosophical differences that we celebrate as part of our great democracy and those who purposely, repeatedly, and maliciously distort the facts. Of course we have to apply that principle to conservatives and liberals alike.
Can we also ask them not to panic unnecessarily and lash out at others for no good reason?
I disagree. It was an attempt to allay their fears as you just suggested. The problem is the fear mongers will ignore the effort and keep fanning the fire. They are the ones that need to be called out.
cosmosdan, for the President to ask six year olds to “Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President” is a mistake. It’s a mistake because it sure sounds like it is encouraging a cult of personality that has no place in American life. You guys don’t seem to get how wrong this request was, so consider it the other way 'round.
As a lifelong Democrat, I can assure you that I would have been among the first people up in arms and screaming if Bush had asked the teachers to tell my grade school daughter to “help the President” in some vague unspecified fashion. Why? Because I didn’t trust Bush a bit, and I wouldn’t want my daughter “helping” Bush unless I knew exactly what help he wanted, and maybe not even then. I mean, I’d piss on him if he were on fire, but I wouldn’t help him much more than that.
So tell me, folks, why should it be any different for people that don’t trust Obama? Why shouldn’t they be up in arms when Obama does it?
Now, you and I know that’s not what Obama is up to, he just wants to encourage kids to stay in school. And Bush might have just wanted my daughter to help him encourage kids to stay in school too. But if all he did was ask kids to “help the President”, that sure wouldn’t be my first assumption. Or my second assumption.
Yes, there are “fear mongers” out there. And if you want to fan their fears and solidify their base, just do what the White House has done — insult them, tell them their fears are nonsense, say that they’re “silly”, and keep denying it was any kind of a mistake at all. Oh, yeah, and then blame the “fear mongers” for the fact that people are afraid, just as I would have been afraid if Bush had done it.
Yeah, that’s the ticket, that will make people trust you and stop the fear mongers cold …
Except that** in context**, the question wasn’t vague or unspecified. The question, taken with the other questions, was very clearly asking the kids how they could help the president achieve the goals of decreasing the drop-out rate and increasing students’ success in education. The problem was that the people who wanted to be outraged about this pulled that one sentence from the entirety of the lesson plan and tried to spin it so it looked as if the president was asking for general help to further his entire agenda.
Again, that’s not “all he did”. There is a clear set of lesson ideas that teachers could (optionally) use to go along with the speech. The “help the President” idea was pulled from a long list of other questions and “wondering statements” and it is very obvious what was meant by “help the President” in the context of the entire lesson plan.
Frankly, if you had been “afraid” of GWB speaking to your children in school, I would have thought you were being outrageously silly, too.
This whole “controversy” is ridiculous. I think this quote, from today’s Las Vegas Review-Journal (page B-3) sums it up nicely:
wtf people
I guess my writing must not be clear, but I never said I would have been afraid of GWB speaking to my daughter on TV. I said that I would be afraid of the teacher telling her that she should “help” GWB in any way. My daughter, like many kids, loved her teacher and would have obediently gone out to help Bush. That’s what I said I would be afraid of.
And this is a perfect example of the nonsense that goes on. I say I’d be afraid of one thing, and you tell me I’m “outrageously silly” for being afraid of something totally different that I haven’t mentioned at all.
Friends, it doesn’t help to tell anyone that their fears are outrageously silly, particularly when (as in this case) you haven’t even understood what they might be afraid of. And this is what the White House is doing all too often. You can’t get people to give up their concerns and fears by telling them that they are stupid to believe those things, it just makes them trust you even less. And since them trusting you was the issue to begin with …
Frankly, when a group of people have decided that they are not going to trust you no matter what, it becomes futile to attempt to do anything. What can you possibly do to convince people who are scared and angry about having the president speak to their kids that he isn’t evil after all? They are coming from such a flawed and emotionally ridiculous place that there is no solution. Until people start acting like mature adults it’s not even worth discussing. IMHO, of course.
For the eleventeenth time, people weren’t scared and angry that the president was going to speak to their kids. They were scared and angry that the lesson plan was that the teacher would ask the kids to write down what they could do to “help the president”. If Bush had sent out lesson plans asking the same thing of my kid, I’d have been angry, I don’t want my kid enrolled in helping Bush’s agenda in any form.
And if you truly believe that there is “no solution”, guess what you get in your world?
Let’s see if the right wingers can spot the difference:
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Please explain how you can help the President.
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Please explain how you can help the President keep kids in school, make kids study hard and be good students.
Oh noes, SOCIALISM, INDOCTRINATION, MUSLIM, blah blah fucking blah.
It’s embarrassing how the weakest Americans are being manipulated to think the worst of our country and its leadership.
Uh… what? A cult of personality relates to some unique aspect or feature(s) of the person at the center. The mere political or leadership position the person holds is clearly not enough. To use your analogy to North Korea, it is propagated there that when Kim Jong Il was born, a double rainbow and a new star appeared over Korea. They refer to him by the nickname “Dear Leader” (as opposed to his father’s professed nickname “Great Leader”). Kim Il Song’s birthday and death are public holidays, numerous universities and buildings were named after him during his lifetime, and it is taught that he was a living god who merely assumed a human form during his time on Earth.
Asking elementary school kids to write letters to themselves to help the president’s goal of them staying in school isn’t anywhere close to even vaguely resembling any kind of cult of personality activity. It’s more akin to a company CEO asking workers to brainstorm ways they themselves can help save the company money on a day-to-day basis.
Instead, this whole “cult of personality” meme is the natural consequence of the “messiah” strawman that some conservatives attributed to the left. They think that the left sees Obama as a messiah and that therefore he must see himself the same way. Therefore, much of what he does must be aimed at supporting or building this notion. This is the real basis for much of the frothing at the mouth being seen and no minor change in wording about letters would change it.
Post #11:
Post #23
Post #28
intention, you keep invoking the existence of that phrase. Please clarify: “Help the president” do WHAT?
Was the address to be given to just 6 year olds? Either way I’d have to say your reaction strikes me as a bit paranoid.
As much as I despised Bush I would assume his address to 6 year olds would be standard fare stuff and no threat to my grandchildren. “Study hard, stay in school, and help make our great country even greater blah blah blah.” It wouldn’t even occur to me to worry about republican indoctrination because it’s a few minutes out of their whole lives and I know I’m going to have far more influence on them than the president as far as shaping their outlook and basic philosophy.
Because it’s ridiculous.
Nor should it be anyones. I hope you noticed that many people didn’t even want their kids listening to Obama so it wasn’t just the letter.
Once again, if you were afraid about Bush doing something simply I’d say that was unnecessarily paranoid as well.
I agree that don’t be stupid is not a good political response but IMHO neither is catering to that paranoia. There are other choices.
I’m suggesting the WH continue to remind people that we are all American’s working* together* for the betterment of our country even though we don’t always agree on the issues. Rather than call them stupid I’d consistently encourage them to not believe the rumors being spread by political fear mongers and remind them that those fear mongers have their own agenda in mind rather than the best interest of the general public.
I’d also use whatever methods I had to encourage the press to not sensationalize every bogus controversy and make a suggestion that there might be a story in exposing falsehoods rather than just repeating them as part of a story line.
You do have to accept the fact that some groups will never trust you, and the fear mongers will continue to do there routine. Your target audience are those in the middle who will listen to reason presented consistently.
During the first weeks of the health care uproar I think it was a mistake for the Dems to focus on the small percentage of phony contrived protesters rather than on those that had legitimate questions.
I don’t see any reason to have any kind of serious discussion about death panels. Call it for the political BS it is and let others expose it. I feel the same about this indoctrination farce. Express regret that some citizens have decided to believe the political fear mongering, reiterate that the president wants to encourage kids to stay in school be good citizens and we’re not sure why that would be a problem for anyone ; let those who decide to not participate not participate. Then on to serious issues.
But wouldn’t that have been a perfect opportunity to sit down with your daughter and have a rational discussion about the president, his policies, and what he was asking of your daughter? Surely as a parent you have more influence than a man who delivers a 20-minute address over the airwaves. It just seems to me that that’s the real tragedy here. Not that people disagree with Obama or his message, but that they won’t even let their children be exposed to it and have a calm discussion with them afterward about the finer points of US politics.
When you were in school, weren’t you ever called into the auditorium to hear an address from a public figure, such as the superintendant of schools, or the police chief, or the mayor? That sort of thing was never controversial before now.
My answer is, if the request had been #2, the White House wouldn’t have had to change it. But it wasn’t. The request was #1, and they realized their mistake and changed it.
OK, I’m not a right winger, I’m an Obama supporter … but did I pass the pop quiz and spot the difference anyhow?
On a more serious note, as I pointed out several times, when Bush was Prez I would not have wanted any teachers to instruct my daughter to “help the President”. So here’s a pop quiz back atcha …
Was I “manipulated” into thinking that?
Does it help the discussion to accuse me of being “manipulated” into thinking that?
Who are the Sojourners BTW?
kaylasdad99, thanks for a very good question, viz:
That’s exactly my point. They didn’t say what they wanted the kids to help the President do. That was the problem, that it was so open-ended.
On a more general note, as I have pointed out several times, when Bush was Prez I didn’t want my daughter “help the president” do anything. If Bush had his nasty hand in it, I didn’t want her to have any part of it. Obama should have asked what kids to write down what they might do to “help kids stay in school”, or “help kids do well in school”, or “help kids graduate”.
Camus, you raise an interesting issue — why is the word “President” in the request at all?
He wants kids to help other kids stay in school? Fine, ask them to help other kids do that. Rather than being front and center, the word “President” shouldn’t appear in the request.
For a good example of how to do this, you might take a look at … oh … say … the revised lesson plan. Do you see the word “President” in the revised request? Well, no … because helping the kids was the point.
And since helping kids was the point … why were they being asked to help the President?
I would bet, though, that people who have a problem with this request, would not have had any problem with a request to “write letters to themselves about why they love America.”
Could you imagine the outrage at something like that? Or, more likely, the outrage at the outrage at something like that?