Americans never cease to amaze me. The president wants to make a small speech addressing school children and encourage them to study and stay in school and everybody makes a racket out of it. For that they deserve a major facepalm.

They really do. No. They need a good ol' punch in the face. LMFAO. :)

You don't know that's what the speech was to be about, because the President REFUSED to release a copy of the speech ahead of time. And the homework that WAS released ahead of time didn't say "How will you stay in school and study hard", it said "How will you help President Obama?" THAT, combined with his "obama-youth" notions that he talked about during the campaign, and the indoctrination of children in leftist policies advocated by the school board he and Bill Ayers were on together back in Chicago JUSTIFIABLY worried a lot of parents. Anyone who wasn't worried wasn't paying attention or has already guzzled the Obama Kool-aid. Now he's backpedaling, changing the homework, and likely sanitizing the speech that once went along with the original homework.

Unconditional obedience to someone with as much power would be bad.

Unconditional respect for any person who treats others with respect is something more should learn. Power is not the issue on this point.

Is saying small town people "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" showing respect? Is flipping off both McCain and Hillary Clinton, on 2 occasions, showing respect? Is calling Palin a pig in lipstick and McCain an old stinky fish showing respect? Is attacking the conservatives in this country time after time showing respect?

No.

Obama gets no respect from me. He hasn't earned it, and he has proven he doesn't deserve it.

And this thread goes completely off the rails...congratulations all!

Tinfoil hats and Kool-Aid for everyone!

Pronouncing a speech Moaist that you have not even read or heard is the height of propogandizing. To throw out such a term when the majority of your audience only knows it as a negative implication and are are largely ignorant of the specific Chairman Mao's ideas is a classic technique used in brainwashing. Either you are a victim of such, or a perpetrator. Defend your accusation and let us know which you are.

As for the issue, is seems when not enough headway was being made on serious issues the opposition had to resort to distractions such as minor issues like this speech instead of the existing debate on healthcare.

Just for the record, does the government ever address students en masse like this in Japan?

I didn't see it happen when I was there.

You have all the right-wing buzz words in all the right places. I also like how you did REFUSED in all caps. The speech will be available on line before he gives it. There were many components to the suggested in-class and homework assignments, one of them being "How will you help the president?" A completely innocuous question unless you are of the mind that the president is a boogie man trying to steal our children from us like the Pied Piper. Only then would that question appear ominous and intimidating.

Because of protests, that question was removed from the assignments, and what is the result? He is accused of backpedaling. Sorry, you can't have it both ways.

Just out of curiosity, what do you honestly think he was going to say in his speech, before it was "sanitized"?

Besides the error in Palin comment, remember all of these comments happened during an election. Clinton disrespected McCain and Obama, and McCain certainly had his digs in on Clinton and Obama. It's an election. It's what happens. When it's over you shake hands and move on. McCain did. Clinton did. Sounds like samurai007 has not.

Did the left shake hands after Bush won in 2000? Or when he won again in 2004? Heck no. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and Obama should expect the same resistance Bush got from beginning to end.

As for what I feel Obama would have said, I think he'd have pushed his agendas on a variety of subjects, including socialized medicine, environmentalism, etc. I think it would have been a soft-sell, aimed at a younger audience, not a fiery hard-sell campaign style speech, but still full of assumptions about what Obama believes and is pushing for. I think he was going to ask kids to get involved in these issues in some way, which is what the homework was referring to. I think he would have couched things in terms that young kids couldn't see through, such as "socialized medicine just wants to help poor people who get sick..." Never mind whether there are better free-market ways to accomplish that goal, he'd leave kids to believe that opposing his plan means you must want poor people who get sick to suffer and die... an impression I'm sure he's only too happy to instill, since they say as much in their rhetoric to adults too.