Nothing makes our kids beg for an extended study hall like a back-to-school speech delivered from Barack Obama’s teleprompter directly into classrooms nationwide. As expected, it is littered with platitudes and admonishments to work hard. But it also distorts reality.
This is of no great surprise and, hopefully, most of the kids saw it coming. Obama’s Presidency struggles to embrace reality every day. The spin machine expects the grown-ups to believe that escalating national debt to “stimulate” job creation and economic growth is a good idea, or that giving jobless individuals 99 weeks of guaranteed unemployment makes sense, or that vilifying physicians and private insurers is the path to quality health care.
Why shouldn’t our kids, enraptured by the great orator from the streets of Chicago, just eat this stuff up? As usual, Obama’s remarks are graded down as much for what they omit as for the messages they contain. No one disagrees that kids need to be encouraged to stay in school, do their best and pursue their goals.
Obama recalls memory of ‘the recession we’ve been through.’
But how about some of these gems delivered by Obama from a school in Philadelphia …
Obama: “I know a lot of you are also feeling the strain of these difficult times. You know what’s going on in the news and your own family’s lives. You read about the war in Afghanistan. You hear about the recession we’ve been through. You see it in your parents’ faces and sense it in their voice.”
The recession we’ve been through. Great news kids, it’s over. Happy days are here again. Obama is certainly right about the strain on the parents’ faces, but it is not some remnant of that bygone recession. It is the strain of eternal ongoing unemployment (9.6%), of household debt spiraling out of control, of a mortgage nearing or already in the clutches of foreclosure. It is, in fact, the recession that will not die under Obama’s Socialist economic agenda that has the parents and kids awake nights.
And while we’re examining this passage, let’s have a “teachable moment” about the notion of context. Raise your hand if you think the average working middle class parent and their school-age child are walking around hunched over because they can’t stop worrying about Afghanistan? Why not toss in the BP oil spill and illegal immigration?
While it is a perfectly legitimate concern — because Afghanistan is the front line in the War on Terror and Obama’s not up for that fight, having banished the phrase from his administration’s lexicon — it is dropped into this speech almost as a buffer, a distraction, to diminish the magnitude of America’s economic decline and the President’s deplorable job performance.
Memo to the White House: Whoever gave you the “list” of what Americans are worried about (probably Christina Romer or Joe Biden) — 1, Afghanistan. 2, Jersey Shore. 3, The economy and jobs. — needs to join the unemployed immediately.
(Don’t hold your breath, unless you don’t care about breathing, to await word of a public school teacher out there, somewhere, who raises this point. “Class, can anyone tell me why President Obama mentions Afghanistan in this speech?”)
Moving on …
Obama: “You see, excelling in school or in life isn’t mainly about being smarter than everybody else. It’s about working harder than everybody else.”
Listen carefully, children, while we fill in the missing parts. And, then, after you’ve worked really hard, harder than everybody else, the federal government is going to come along and seize more than 50% of what you earn and invest, then tax it again at 45%-55% after you die.
The fact is, the smart unemployed are living large compared to the earnest hardworking unemployed these days. The smart ones are kicking back on 99 weeks of (Obama-mandated) government subsidized benefits. Then, when they do find a new job, they’re going to head straight to the picket lines per their union’s orders, to hold out for higher wages and more health insurance from those greedy (hard working) business owners.
If you work too hard under the Obama worldview, you get worn down by obscene taxation and, if you get sick on top of it, you might just discover that the occupational hazard of work related stress is not covered under rationed health insurance coverage, so you’ll be reaching into your own pocket for the privilege of seeing a doctor. If you’re real lucky (remember, smart doesn’t matter), you might even get to see your very own doctor.
Finally …
Obama: “Over the past few weeks, (First Nutritionist) Michelle and I have been getting (our daughters) Sasha and Malia ready for school. And I bet a lot of you are feeling the same way they’re feeling. You’re a little sad to see the summer go …”
Let’s see, we took them on big Air Force jets to the mountains of North Carolina, to the coast of Spain, and to that working class playground of Martha’s Vineyard up in Massachusetts. A little sad? Damn right.
Join the club, Mr. President.