Guess What the President DIDN'T Say?

Honest to God, I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or get insanely angry at the week-long outcry over President Obama's speech to America's schoolchildren earlier today. The President of the United States of America wants to give a pep talk to returning students at the start of the school year, and some idiots have a problem with that?? Hmmm, could it be that it's not just, as they claim, their fears of what he might say, but of who's saying it?

<SNARK>

Bill in Portland Maine @ DailyKos:

[...]some parents, sensing something was amiss, kept their children away from this president and his "innocent message" on that day. No, they hadn't bothered to read his words. They didn’t have to. They were protecting their brood out of raw animal instinct; the way a mother sea turtle gathers its younglings under her shell and pre-emptively sets up a mortar emplacement when she senses danger.

Despite the mockery towards them---the taunts and eye-rolls and grocery baggers deliberately putting gallon milk jugs on top of their egg cartons at Piggly Wiggly---these moms and dads stuck to their guns and kept their children home. And they turned out to be wise indeed. For the president did have a nefarious trick up his sleeve, which he revealed suddenly and without warning at the end of his speech:

So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Now, when I snap my fingers, you will immediately begin operation America Belongs To Kenya Now, Beeyotch. Activation code: six six niner delta roger omega fluffy tango niner eighter later gator. [SNAP!] Go! Go!! Go!!!

</SNARK>

I know some of the wingnuts were expecting Pres. Obama to say exactly that, but they were disappointed. Instead, he told kids to work hard, be responsible, stay in school, be persistent, work hard to succeed, and not grow up to be ignorant, inbred mouthbreathers like some of their parents. But, once again demonstrating that a license is not required to breed, these morons made their children stay at home, and denied them the inspiring opportunity to hear the President address them directly.

We can also thank FAUX News for blowing this issue up far out of proportion, as they have so many other worries of the ignorant and small-minded this summer.

The Rude Pundit:

But the parents are the best. Between the weeping tools (watch the video and see if you can pinpoint the moment the husband realizes what a horrible mistake he's made) and the almost-open racists (like the woman on Fox "news" who admitted that she just "trusted" Ronald Reagan more and would have let her daughter hear him speak), it was a parade of ignorance expressed as reasonable discourse, like listening to a particularly talented chimp try to jabber a manifesto of shit throwing.

C'mon, this is the Leader of the Free World we're talking about! Whatever happened to that line about "if you don't support the President, you're a traitor"? Oh, yeah, that only applied to old, neoconservative white men. If instead the President doesn't look like the guys on the currency, he's a secret Muslim Kenyan socialist fascist racist dictator, you're suddenly upset about a war that started eight years ago, and they want their America back--and we're not talking about Native Americans here, either.

Free-Spirited Ruminations:

When I was a kid I would have been really honored that the President of the United States would even think to speak to me and other kids. I'm getting really irritated at the fact that no matter what our president does, he is disrespected and looked at in a negative light by these people. Education is important for all kids' futures. To have the leader of our country emphasize that can only be good - and this is true whether you agree with him on other subjects or not.

Let's hope that those kids who were kept home today manage to see and hear the president online tonight or over the next few days, despite what their wingnut parents might want. And I'd make a bet that those parents won't even know how to stop them from doing that on the intertubes!


EXTRA CREDIT:

In 1988, what President did use his address to schoolchildren to promote "his anti-government, low-tax ideology, adding that he had supported 'Negro' educational institutions"?