Like ABC and CNN on Monday morning, NBC’s Today also lauded the Obama daughters’ new Sidwell Friends school as green and compassionate, a school that "emphasizes a lot of the themes of the Obama administration." Like the other networks, NBC made no mention of the Obamas choosing a pricey private school and not considering a public school, or their opposition to school choice for children poorer than theirs. Today co-host Matt Lauer interviewed Maureen Orth of Vanity Fair magazine (Tim Russert’s widow) to get all the compassionate details:
LAUER: Yeah but, but I just want to mention, a lot of people thinking, well it's great, they're sisters, they'll have each other to lean on. But they're going to separate campuses, aren't they?
ORTH: That's right, yes. The lower school where Sasha is going is in Bethesda and that's just right outside of Washington D.C. Where Malia is going is a, the first platinum green building in Washington. And there are so many things about the school, it's a Quaker school. There are so many things about the school that, that emphasizes consensus. Lighting your light from within.You bring a vegetable on Wednesdays to cut up for the homeless shelter. There's a lot of stuff in this school that emphasizes a lot of the themes of the Obama administration.
There was no one expressing any skepticism about the echoes of limousine liberalism in a school that charges 30,000 dollars (or more) for tuition trying to balance that out with Bring a Vegetable for the Homeless Wednesday. How many vegetables could you buy the poor with 30,000 dollars? Instead, supposedly hardened NBC reporters worried about "butterflies in their tummies" when the daughters of President Global Rock Star arrive on campus:
Remember your first day at a new school? Now imagine you're about to move to the most famous address in America, your dad is about to become President and he has the global popularity of a rock star. Sasha and Malia Obama are bound to have a few butterflies in their tummies this morning.
NBC reporter Tom Costello was so compassionate he announced that NBC would leave the school scene before the Obama girls arrived:
COSTELLO: While we have video of the kids and Michelle Obama just now leaving the Hay-Adams hotel on their way here to the school, Matt, the last thing they need is for a camera crew to stand outside their school. So we are leaving, back to you.
LAUER: Not a bad idea.
