When I read that speech from Bush, he is saying for kids to have a goal. For them to think about consequences of no education. For those kids to have responsibility to make thier life better. Then he asks them to write to him how (we) can achieve that goal. So that is Bush asking kids to help him acheive his goal to have kids educated. Obama is asking the same. His agenda is not marxist manifesto, but to inspire kids to stay in school so they have the chance to be successful in a capitalist country. I think it is stupid for democrats or republicans to make scary stories about a speech.
Liberals and conservatives both like taxes, they just spend them differently. Liberals tend to socialize, and conservatives tend to privatize. At any rate, back to the topic, the good news is that the whole planet is spending big on stimulus, so at least we'll all be on a level playing field. Well, except for the fact that we in the developed world are not poor.
And....the Democrats held hearings. I'm sure you would be all for the Republicans returning the favor today. When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT 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." Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda." 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." Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...rats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html PS: I think this whole thing (criticism of obama's speech) was totally over the top. The speech was apolitical imo.
Yes Arnie. Both try to use the speech from the presidente for a political agenda. So the president himself is not using the speech for their agenda, but the opposite party is using that speech for their agenda. It is harmless those speeches.