Interesting post at Althouse this morning. It seems when Bush I gave a speech to students similar to Obama’s (which I concede was innocuous) the Democratic controlled Congress had a conniption.
The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush’s speech — they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.'”
Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. “The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,” Ford began. “As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.”
That didn’t stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it “cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers’ money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. — while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters.”
My main point in this controversy was the double standard. Obama gets a free pass where a Republican would not.
Free pass? Take it from me, this speech was made into a pretty big deal here in the States. Some schools had permission slips to let kids opt out and some schools chose not to watch the speech. There were protesters at the school he visited. The “MSM” was all over this non-story.
Any president should get a free pass to talk to K-12 kids about making good choices and doing the right thing.
The old partisan double standard is what politics is all about. For many people, their actual though process is replaced by the security blanket of clinging to the party line.
Obama did not get a free pass! When Bush 1 gave his speech and was denounced by certain members of Congress the general public did not join in the madness. In fact the whole thing garnered very little attention from the public despite the Post story. This time around it got really nasty with people on the right insisting it was indoctrination of school kids into socialism, making comparisons of Obama and Hitler or Obama and Kim Jong il. Parents kept their kids out of school for pete’s sake! Of course blogs weren’t that big back then or Youtube. Now days word gets around a lot faster, the tone is less civil and politics as a whole more inflammatory.
Party hardliners who would take a position against anything the other party did or said have always existed. People who wanted to grab a little of the limelight for themselves (think members of Congress). However, these people used to be more or less ignored. No more. Common sense has been sacrificed in the rush to bash the other side. The approach is like that normally reserved for rival sports teams scoring points off one another except good sportsmanship has been abandoned and it doesn’t matter how you make your points as long as you win.
One other thing, above you wrote that the Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,†the Post reported
From the Washington Post, published Friday, October 4, 1991:
‘Funding of Bush Speech Draws Fire; Democrat Calls Education Broadcast Paid Political Advertising’
Democrats assailed the Bush Administration today for spending $26,750 in taxpayer money to hire a production company that oversaw President Bush’s telecast from an eighth-grade classroom here to schoolchildren around the country on Tuesday. The money came from the Education Department’s salary and expense budget. As a result, Representative William D. Ford, the Michigan Democrat who heads the House Education and Labor Committee, demanded that Education Secretary Lamar Alexander appear before the committee to defend his “spending scarce education dollars to produce a media event.” And the House majority leader, Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, said, “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the President.” The President’s spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, responded by denying that Mr. Bush’s talk to the schoolchildren had been a political event and calling the criticism “nonsense.”
The story appeared on page 14 of the A section. I point this out because the Post did not make the accusation but reported it. The statement above implies otherwise.
Fortuneate: Yeah, a bunch of rabble raising bloggers is equal to a frickin’ Congressional inquiry. Read this which pretty much says what I would have to say on the matter:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/08/e-j-dionne-republicans-pounced-without-evidence/
As you might recall, my objection to the speech wasn’t based on content, no one knew the content. That was part of the problem. What we DID know was that my former employer ED had drafted study guides that included writing letters on how they would support the President’s agenda. When they subsequently withdrew that after the firestorm, I updated my blog post accordingly.
Bottom line, the Dems went nuts when Bush I talked to students and now criticize the Repubs for doing the same thing.
1. The whole deal with the speech was just as you pointed out (John) the lesson plan. Obama has been compared to JFK (loosely). Even JFK was astute enough to know the difference. “Ask not what your country can do for you. But, ask what you can do for your country”. NOT THE MAN. He is a temporary office holder.
2. Dentoku: If you have read the posts since this whole “Wide World of Sports” debate got started you would recognize that Kevin is John’s son. That’s not to discourage anyone from letting things fly as John seems to enjoy it. Kevin is a sports commentator/journalist in SC. A simple google search will point you there. He’s quite versed in his field. I’ve read some of his reporting and it’s quite good. Spelling and punctuation should fall well behind the “point”. Except of course with the poster of main content: Our host John.
3. Last, but certainly not least, I’m with you John. I’m going upscale or I’m not going. Juicy Bar. What a name.
Another interesting JFK tidbit: He was a strong believer in a government run health care system.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×366493
Unlike Obama he wanted true socialized medicine. This health care debate is obviously far from new. That is why I make the point Obama isn’t really as radical as people think.
Also Frank, thanks for the kind words. I enjoy popping by here to see more important topics discussed than the starting quarterback for Steve Spurrier.
John you wrote, “I guess I have a third thought: I wonder if the kids will be given an email address to report their parents should they fail to heed the message.” That sounds very much like you objected to content (message). You started that post with Republicans accuse the White House of trying to indoctrinate school children with liberal propagand. Again that sounds like content. You followed that post up with a video that I am pretty sure was meant to draw similarities between Obama and the North Korean government’s indoctrination methods.
Of course your concern could have been the content of the lesson plan drawn up by the Dept of Ed. Write a letter to yourself about what you can do to help the President. Maybe the blonde hair has affected my brain but that simple statement fails to raise any alarms. I see Frank’s point but isn’t that really saying it wasn’t policitally correct? In any event soemone at the Dept of Ed wrote that lesson plan not the President. Words matter I know that but the criticism leveled at Obama was not that he was being politically incorrect or insensitive.
The criticism leveled at Bush I had to do with him attemtping to distract the country while he failed to address domestic policy and that he wasted public funds on what amounted to paid political advertising. A couple of Democratic politicians levied these accusations. The investigation amounted to one Congressman requesting information from the Dept of Ed as to how much was spent on the event. The public failed to get hyped by this. The criticism of Obama was that he was going to indoctrinate school children. You can say that your concern was the lesson plan but your posts suggest you were caught up with the indoctrination theme. Parents threatened to keep their kids out of school because Obama was going to turn them into socialist.
Lastly in his address to the school children Bush said, “Write me a letter — I’m serious about this one — write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals.” I guess the fact that bush said “us” makes his request more acceptable, more PC.