Extremists still angry over losing the election have a new issue: they just can't stomach the president making a back-to-school speech next Tuesday urging children to work hard.
You heard that right. Schools around Connecticut are receiving calls from parents complaining about the speech. Around the nation some school districts are in an uproar over the Obama speech. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently wrote to school principals, explaining the idea:
This has set off warning bells among the Obama-haters. In a syndicated column that ran locally in the Torrington Register Citizen yesterday, Michelle Malkin charged that children were being used as "polical guinea pigs." The Washington Times had this to say today:
Radicals always have viewed children as wards of the state to be shaped into shock troops to advance their revolutionary agendas ... Every radical leader of the 20th century put indoctrinating children at the top of his agenda. So when someone with Mr. Obama's background reaches directly into every school in America, parents are rightly concerned.
We should be concerned because a president is paying attention to education. Obama wants to "challenge students to work hard." This is a problem? Shouldn't we teach children to respect and listen to what a president has to say -- whether it's Obama, George Bush or Ronald Reagan?
In some parts of the country, parents are demanding that students not be required to listen to the president. This is from yesterday's Houston Chronicle:
Connecticut Commissioner of Education Mark McQuillan has it right. He told me he was "delighted to see a president takng that active an interest in this important issue."