The sadness has arisen from the takeover of the banks, of two Detroit automakers, from environmentalism by Washington not only with motor vehicle regs but with the House climate bill and now with health care, increasingly among lib Dems since this year, combined with post-election continued staged-and-managed “campaign” appearances (and managed press conferences) by Obama and continued exploitation of his personality cult.

And though that's more than enough to set intelligent people long on edge already, there was the more generalist version of the lesson plans distributed in advance of Obama's school speech (which itself reeks of grossly excessive and inappropriate federal presence among those who value propriety).

The real sadness is how many ignorant or worse, approving people saw nothing wrong (typically not even paying attention to the original lesson plans, or questioning a speech to kids now, as the health care effort is deeply troubled, let alone by the federal government at any time as a propriety issue).

It is very sad to see how many ordinary Americans believe that socialism is right around the corner- even after such an apolitical speech.

We actually received a message from our daughter's school giving us a choice to opt out of this speech. What parent in their right mind wouldn't want their child to work hard and stay in school?? How much more benign could the president's message be??

I think that's a great summary of what's going on here. There are plenty of things to be critical of the president about. This isn't one of them. During the election, I considered myself a conservative-leaning moderate. But recently I've found myself having to defend the right more often, since i disagree with many of the policy positions of the Obama administration. I was beginning to wonder if I really should be a Republican after all. And then something like this happens and sets me straight again.