While it long ago crossed the borders of reason and civility, the hysteria over healthcare reform is -- at some level -- understandable, because wellness and infirmity are really just stand-ins for those most terrifying of issues, life and death.

But there is no similar way to rationalize the bizarre controversy now raging over President Obama's plan to deliver a brief televised address on Tuesday to the nation's grammar school children.

According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Obama will "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."

Sounds innocuous. Who, after all, could be against good study habits, personal responsibility and productive lives? As it turns out, quite a number of people who seem to believe that Obama intends to induct their children into -- well, it's not quite clear what they're afraid of. The Web and talk radio are abuzz with various attempts to organize a boycott of Tuesday's speech. One group is urging parents to demand that their children be excused from watching the president and be sent instead to the school library to read the Founding Fathers. (The theory, one supposes, is that a good dose of the Federalist Papers will inoculate the young against Obama's attempts to subvert the republic through good grades.)

On Wednesday, Fox News devoted a substantial portion of one of its prime-time newscasts to a discussion of whether Obama is, in fact, trying to seduce schoolchildren to some darkly obscure personal agenda. The sole guest, a spokesman for the libertarian Cato Institute, reported that "we've gotten a lot of calls from people asking, 'How do I keep my child from being indoctrinated?' "

On Thursday, Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, accused the president of attempting to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda." According to Greer, "the idea that schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run healthcare, banks and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president, is not only infuriating but goes against the beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."

Anxiety over the speech seems particularly high in Texas, where many districts are offering parents involved in the boycott movement the option of taking their children out of class. (Whoever thought we'd see Texas treat advocacy of personal responsibility like sex education?)

The irony wasn't lost on everybody in the state. Puzzled Texas education officials told the Houston Chronicle that students often watch presidential speeches broadcast during school hours and that, in 1989, President George H.W. Bush specifically spoke to students about drug abuse. "It's hard to imagine anything more ridiculous than attacking the president of the United States for talking to students about the importance of getting a good education and being a good citizen," said Kathy Miller, president of a statewide school monitoring group. "I wish our elected leaders were responsible enough to denounce this kind of wild-eyed paranoia. But the problem is too many of them are actually feeding this kind of nonsense -- like when the governor flirts with secessionists and state Board of Education members say the president sympathizes with terrorists."

Miller has identified precisely the process at work in the healthcare hysteria and, increasingly, elsewhere where the GOP thinks it can shove the Obama administration into a ditch. Republican officials such as the Florida state chairman are playing a dangerous game with an unhinged segment of public opinion that regards Obama not as an elected official with whom they disagree, but as an illegitimate usurper of the presidency.

That paranoid fantasy is what's really behind the "birther" movement and the allegations that the president is -- take your pick -- a secret Marxist or a secret Muslim.

It's the kind of fanciful anxiety that produces comments like this, posted on a conservative website this week: "Barack Obama and his left-wing Chicago machine regime are putting into place laws and institutions which will insure that there will never again be free elections in America."

These are the people who are stockpiling ammunition and keeping their children at home next Tuesday.

The leftists extremists are going insane.

...parents aren't "insane" at all, but rather they just plain old fashioned don't trust the SOBama...

After all we have had 8 months to observe his blithering bullshit.

Neither are they willing to surrender their kids to a day of his whim and caprice.

Let TOTUS make his remarks to parents, and let the parents pass the info on - if they see fit to do that - to the kids.

If he knocked on your door and wanted to talk to your kids without you being present, would you let him in without question?

 I sure as hell wouldn't ! Not my kids, not now, not ever.

Not my President...not now, not ever

Everything about this guy has been a cult of personality.

Teachers have been some of the worst offenders.

They assign children art projects on Obama.

Kids march in formation or sing in chorus about our Dear Leader like, well, he was Dear Leader or something.

Teachers' unions, like every other union, are heavily invested in Obama and Democrats.

The difference lies in the type of investment.

SEIU, UAW and other unions invest hundreds of millions of dollars torn from members' paychecks with no concern for their political persuasion.

But the NEA invests your kids' minds in the pursuit of Obama's agenda..

And they don't give a damn about your political leanings either.

Teachers continuously bypass parents when it comes to some type of indoctrination such as Gore's farce, 'An Inconvenient Truth' or Michael Moore's steaming piece of crap, 'Fahrenheit 911'.

Of course parents are going to speak up when this kind of thing comes up. They know what teachers do when no one's watching.

'Staying in school'? Have you read what Obama cut out of the speech?

The only thing missing was how to rat on your parents. (Maybe that was in the curriculum.)

You show your ignorance when you smear conservatives as 'stupid'.

But we show our intelligence when we conclude that you're coming across as a blithering idiot.

Please reply. Please.

Nationalized Healthcare is a DEATH SENTENCE.

Democrats are the party of killers, racists, pedophiles, bribe takers, serial sexual harassers, liars, perjurers, obstructors of justice and treasonous frauds.

"The POTUS is now not good enough to talk to the American students about staying in school?"

Is the President just talking to the students or is he trying to TEACH to them?  The Obama administration is promoting this as a motivational speech, but that's NOT what is planned.  Since the Dept of Education is issuing curriculum instructions to all participating schools, instructions that assign "activities" to accompany his "speech," I'd say this is an attempt to "educate" the kids and not "motivate" them.  You don't "motivate" people by assigning them lessons and activities, you TEACH them by assigning them lessons and activities, correct?  So, who is it that is truly displaying a lack of critical thinking skills here?  Us or you?

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution

Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court

  He is not even located in this country. How can he make pronouncements about conservatives or liberals. He don't live here. 

Sincerely,

a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.

I can only imagine the hatred and rioting that would ensue if Palin was allowed to address every student attending public school in this nation.

I really truly hope that the next Republican president does this same exact thing, then we can come back to today and expose the leftist hypocrisy.

And you are the self-anointed guru of absolute truth who only listens to people with whom you agree. Brilliant. 

And, of course, there are no racists here, are there. 

Here you go........   http://www.instantrimshot.com/

"A nation can suffer it's fool's, but cannot survive the traitor"

Cicero

Well, it sure sounds like "Nazzi Germany" around here. Never, in the history of this country, have people been so bellicose and belligerent about a President speaking to school children about studying hard. 

Lol jessie...

If O could make it mandatory for all to be required as he wished, he would.

'Go Green...Recycle Congress'

Oh, come on! "For me, it doesn't matter who the president is..."? Give me a break. If this was a white president, you wouldn't even be visiting this forum, much making these kinds of comments and you know it. The notion that there is some political agenda to Obama's speech to school kids and that the "curriculum" is anything but a lesson in civics and participatory democracy is motivated by one thing – you can't stomach the idea of a black man in authority speaking to your kids about anything, especially a black who is sitting in the White House. Man-up and admit it. 

I would have to agree with you there. GW Bush sure wasn't in that classroom to teach anybody anything. He even had the reading book in his hands upside down. Of course, his appearance was cut short by the news of the attacks, so I don't think anybody can say what might have been said in that classroom later on. You forget that a lot of kids are hearing about the economic crisis, the wars and global warming, and all that has an impact on their psyche. How could it possibly be a bad idea for them to get encouragement from the President of the United States? What idiot would be against that, unless they had some kind of problem with a black man in authority talking to their kids?