The right-wing-nuttery continued its nattering today with its claims that the President’s speech to American schoolchildren would be biased and ideological and that he should not be speaking to them. Here’s an answer for Rush, the Michelles (Malkin and Bachmann), Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, and all the other scoundrels, male and female, who are spewing out their nonsense in the various right-wing organs funded by the plutocrats, whose real interest is in overthrowing our democracy, not in safeguarding anyone’s freedom.
Oh puhlease . . . This is all ridiculous. There is no unbiased speech anywhere, in your sense of that term. Every speech has a frame and the President’s will definitely have one. It may even be a liberal, leftist frame. So what? Every speech Bush gave had a conservative, rightist frame.
Elections have consequences. Get over it!
Democrats lost in 2000, and we had to get over it, and endure 8 years of agonizing, moronic conservative framing, not to mention spectacularly catastrophic policies for our nation. We even still have to endure some of it, from that madman Cheney, who, along with his despicable daughter, for some reason I can’t understand, still is able to command time for his fascist poison on the MSM cable networks.
Barack Hussein Obama is the President of the United States. Any school in this country, public or private, but especially public, should be honored to have him speak. And, it. is. unpatriotic. to. think. otherwise. It is taking politics much too far.
This is one nation. And the President is the leader of our nation. if you’ve got a problem with that, then move somewhere else, or work to defeat him in the next election. Until then, you and I and every American owe him the respect of the office, unless he breaks faith with his oath of office and is impeached and convicted.
When you make that pledge: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all,” the pledge you make is not only to a flag; it is to a constitution. And that constitution makes the President the supreme executive authority in this nation. As such he is also the only leader of this country who represents all of the people of our union.
When you disrespect him, you disrespect the pledge you made to that flag and to that constitution. When you object to his talking to schoolchildren in a school you are disrespecting not simply him, but all of us who agreed to submit to the electoral process that put him in office, including all the Republicans who participated. And you are also disrespecting all of us who voted for him and who selected him to fulfill the office of the President. And you are also disrespecting all of our institutions, and the 200+ years of our history as an independent nation. And you are also disrespecting the idea of a republic with its separation of powers, and also the idea of constitutional democracy. Finally, you are also disrespecting the idea of our unity as a nation of free people.
Do not do this anymore. Criticize the President all you want for his speeches, for his policies, for anything else about him you care to. All that is acceptable. What is not acceptable is any efforts to disrupt the relationship between the President and the people he is constitutionally obligated to represent. Among those people are school children, including, perhaps, your own. As their President, he has the right to talk to them when they are in school. You can’t try to stop him and still call yourself a loyal and patriotic American.
(Also posted at firedoglake.com where there may be more comments)