Obama and the Kids

Many parents are upset about President Obama addressing the school kids this upcoming Tuesday. They see it as meddling into an area where the President has no business meddling. I don't really disagree but I see it more as gross incompetence.

As others have pointed out - there are a many school districts that won't even be in school on Tuesday. Is there something else behind the choosing of September 8th as the day to address the kids or is the Obama Department of Education that inept that it doesn't even know when the kids will be in school? Either way it was a stumbling and bumbling scheduling error.

Then you had the initial idea of having the kids write a letter to the President. This was both creepy in a "Dear Leader" sort of way but also stupid politically. It was so creepy that the Department of Education had to backtrack and change the assignment from writing a letter of how the kids could help the President to writing about what educational goals the kids should set for themselves. Let me make a couple of points about this:

1. The backtracking shows more incompetence. The idea clearly wasn't thought through and once it reached the light of day it had to be changed. Incompetence.

2. What a long way we have come from JFK and "ask not what your country can do for you" to "hey kids - what can you do for the President?"

3. You are giving kids a homework assignment on what will be the first day of school for many of them! Millions of kids will have the same "I have to do a stupid paper for the stupid President" reaction.

4. What about the teachers who don't assign the recommended letter as homework? They are basically sending the message - you don't have to listen to this guy. It's a lose-lose situation and the President's people will have done this to themselves.

5. A less charitable guy might observe that the President was actually really asking for help as an admission that he's over his head but afraid to ask the adults.

So first you have President Obama messing with the economy and people's livelihood with the pork-laden Stimulus plan - a move which gave rise to the Tea Party Protests. Then you had the President trying to ram through healthcare reform - a move which gave rise to Townhall meetings bashing the President and anyone who supported him. Now you have the president messing with education? So in short first he messed with people's jobs, then their healthcare and now he's messing with their kids? It's as if he's purposely trying to aggravate the blue-collar core of the Democratic Party.

Gross incompetence.