Discussing the concern of some parents' about their children being a captive audience to President Obama's planned speech next Tuesday, MSNBC's David Shuster today scoffed at conservative activist Michael Leahy by asking if Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign was "indoctrination" (audio available here):
MICHAEL LEAHY: This is from the lesson plan, the old, the original lesson plan. They want--
DAVID SHUSTER, interrupting: Which has since been changed, but go ahead.
LEAHY: --teachers to extend learning by having students write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. Now, David, that is indoctrination. We don't want that.
SHUSTER: Okay, so was it indoctrination when Nancy Reagan? Okay, fair point. Well, was it indoctrination then when Nancy Reagan encouraged students to write down what they could do to help say no to drugs?
LEAHY: Well, I tell you what. Here's what we suggest that parents do. Go to school, have your kids go to school...
SHUSTER: Well, how about answer my question first, Mike?
Leahy declined to answer Shuster's ludicrous Nancy Reagan question, so later in the segment, Shuster plunged deeper into ridiculousness with an argument about President Bush reading "My Pet Goat" to youngsters in a Florida classroom on the morning of September 11, 2001:
SHUSTER: Mike, I'm going to give you one more chance. I'm going to try one more time with a yes-or-no. Was it a subversive threat when George W. Bush read "My Pet Goat" on 9/11, which essentially might have encouraged kids to go out and get a pet goat even though in Florida, where he was giving the speech, it's against the law to have a goat unless you're on a farm, so was the president trying to encourage kids to subvert the law when he did that?
LEAHY: David, you are so in the tank for Barack Obama, you should be on the White House communication staff, not at MSNBC.
