Yes, here is proof that not all Republicans buy into or are part of the talk radio political culture. The AP reports:
Republican Gov. Gary Herbert supports President Barack Obama’s plan to deliver a televised back-to-school speech to the nation’s students on Tuesday, saying he sees “nothing but good coming out of this.”
Herbert said he favors letting students listen to the speech, and he thinks it will foster a dialogue between parents and their children.
“I think it’s great. To hear from the president of the United States is an important thing,” he said Saturday. “I’d like to hear what he has to say.
“I hope parents will take the opportunity to discuss the issues with their children, hear what the presidents views are and what his vision is for the future of America. If they agree, then explain that. If they disagree, explain to their children why. I see nothing but good coming out of this,” he said.
Meanwhile, in an opinion piece in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Bob Ray Sanders, Vice President /Associate Editor and a Metro columnist for the paper, blasts those who have whipped up the frenzy against Obama’s speech. Here are some parts of it:
Parents are talking about keeping their kids home from school this week.
Some so-called leaders are expressing grave concern “for the children” in fear of an impending disaster.
And the provocateurs who commandeer broadcast microphones on a daily basis continue to warn of a serious contagion that the nation must fight “by any means necessary.”
I could understand it if these folk were worried about the H1N1 (“swine flu”) virus, but that’s not their concern.
The infection they are afraid of is the president of the United States and his possible influence on America’s children.
He notes that JFK, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush also “tried to inspire young people to think, to talk and to act.” He then writes:
Unfortunately for a growing number of frightened, misguided and hate-filled Americans, this president should not and must not be a role model for their children. Therefore, their young sons and daughters should not be in class — or perhaps even in school — if there’s a remote possibility that the plague-spreading left-wing devil called Obama will speak to them.
They’ve labeled him the Antichrist who is set on desecrating the Constitution, destroying the country and annihilating their children’s futures.
It is theater of the absurd, being played out in exaggerated dramatic fashion on stages large and small — in offices, backrooms, broadcast studios and on the World Wide Web.
I would find it laughable if it were not so tragic, so sinister and so sickening.
People who consider themselves intelligent, patriotic and religious have bought into this pathetic self-serving campaign to oppose Obama at every turn by plotting against any initiative he offers and continuously praying for his failure even if it would mean the downfall of their own country.
While I understand mean-spirited, partisan adults exhibiting such behavior, I can’t comprehend why anyone would want to pass along such disrespectful and vitriolic traits to their children.
After a few more comments he concludes:
It is too bad that those caught up in what they regard as a socialist conspiracy to destroy our democratic society are infecting their children with the disease of intolerance.
And believe me, just like the swine flu, intolerance is contagious.
Read it in its entirety.
Dallas Morning News columnists James Ragland also doesn’t mince words. Here’s just a small part of his column:
So, my fellow Americans, this is how far we’ve fallen?
To the pathetic point where a few crackpots can smear and demonize the president of the United States for talking to kids about sticking with and succeeding in school?
And rather than being slapped on the wrist and sternly directed to go sit in a corner until they learn some manners, these fringe lunatics are cleverly bending minds and hearts.
They’re whipping parents and school districts into a McCarthy-era frenzy.
Un-be-liev-able.
Then again, in this age of toxic talk radio and scatterbrained social networking Web sites, it doesn’t take much to stir the pot these days.
All you’ve got to do is mention President Barack Obama in the same breath with Hitler or Mao and suggest that this is all part of his “socialist manifesto.”
If that doesn’t work, wave the American flag and subtly suggest that he may not even be a U.S. citizen.
Oh yeah, and you might casually interject that you’ve heard Obama is a – big gulp – Muslim.
Still not scared?
The president’s half-black, too, you know and – shhh! – we’d best be wary of that, ahem, liberal side of him.
Lest – OK, how ’bout before – anyone accuses me of playing the race card, I suggest that you read some of the nasty letters and e-mails I get about Obama. All. The. Time.
A Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial includes this:
The political lesson some seem intent on teaching our kids today is rooted in what appears to be a growing lack of respect for the office of the president. How very sad.
It ought to give Americans pause about the toll of excessive partisanship when the president is faulted for planning to urge the nation’s schoolchildren to learn their lessons. On Tuesday, the first day of school for many Americans, the president’s brief address should be a valuable reminder that students serve their country as well as themselves when they succeed academically. That message deserves a top-level spokesman.
Education has never been as strategically important to national well-being as it is today, as other nations move quickly to overtake this country in the knowledge-based economy of the future. Given that challenge, a simple speech on the value of education should not be a matter for partisan contention. But these are odd times. Unfortunately for our children, even a back-to-school welcome can further divide us….
…”The [Obama] message is supposed to be about studying hard, to have high aspirations and to be good students,” the association’s [Minnesota Association of School Administrators] executive director, Charlie Kyte, wrote in an e-mail to members. “In a simpler, and less contentious, time this would be a very welcome message. But we live in both a time of instant communications and a deeply divided nation in terms of political values.”
Reached Friday, Kyte said he was pleased to learn that the White House planned to release the text of the speech on Monday, which will give administrators a chance to review the content. We agree. Administrators should review the speech and decide how it can be used to encourage students. The controversy it has engendered is also grist for lessons about freedom of speech in a democratic society.
The Christian Science Monitor’s Linda Feldman:
Part of the issue is that the Department of Education offered teachers classroom activities to go along with the president’s address. An early version of the lesson plan suggested that students write letters to themselves saying “what they can do to help the president.” That wording was changed to suggest students write letters laying out how they can “achieve their short-term and long-term educational goals.”
But the damage was already done. And now the whole episode seems to be yet another sign of the highly polarized times – and growing concerns among some Americans over government involvement in other areas of life, such as healthcare and the right to bear arms.
At the Friday morning gathering with reporters, Mr. Gibbs said he could not explain the motivations of school districts that won’t show the speech.
“Look, there are some school districts that won’t let you read ‘Huckleberry Finn,’” he said.
If Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided to broadcast that sort of garden-variety pro-education message to children this September, it is hard to envision Canadian parents objecting, regardless of who they might vote for at the polls.
Not so American conservative parents, many of whom who are so frightened and outraged by President Barack Obama’s planned speech to schools on Sept. 8 that they are demanding action from teachers and principals…..
….Such is the alarm being whipped up by that apparently some parents plan to keep their kids home, or sequestered in separate classrooms. Others have asked their schools to tape the live broadcast and screen it first for objectionable content, as if it were a salacious rock video or a violent TV show rather than a scripted presidential address about the value of education.
This is a troubling harbinger for U.S. politics, particularly in light of the fact that Mr. Obama has more than three years left in his mandate. Misinformation campaigns, rumour-mongering and scare tactics during this summer’s heated debate about health-care reform appear to have gained traction as the standard modus operandi for Mr. Obama’s opponents. Rarely has paranoia been so assiduously stirred up against a commander-in-chief.
We recognize that the country is caught in a highly polarized moment. We recognize that the health care debate, which goes to the core of Americans’ fears for their well-being, has brought out some of the worst in our electorate: paranoia, anxiety and irrational anger. But the frenzied reaction to the innocuous news that President Obama will address schoolchildren Tuesday suggests that the ever-louder fringe of the Republican Party has lost control of its senses….
The Chronicle then recounts the controversy and concludes:
But that’s what the president’s “critics” are saying. We use the term “critics” loosely, since we suspect that there is a lot of overlap between this group and those who question the president’s birth certificate. Some outraged parents are even planning to keep their children from going to school on Tuesday, an attitude that goes far in explaining why American schoolchildren consistently underperform on international skills tests.
It’s disheartening to contrast the reaction to Obama’s speech with the last time a president spoke to the nation’s schoolchildren – George H.W. Bush in 1991. Sure, there were a couple of Democrats who grumbled – but it was about the tax money being spent on the address, not some paranoia about the president’s “cult of personality.” No one complained about the content of the president’s speech, which was full of similarly nonpartisan themes.
The reaction, from the political right, has been anger and wild accusations that he’s planning to indoctrinate kids with socialist ideology. Local school districts have been flooded with calls from parents worried their kids might be exposed.
Is this where we are as a nation? If so, it’s embarrassing. Whether individuals support this president or not, he represents the United States. Respect is owed to the office, and to the man for whom a majority of Americans voted.
Does this mean everyone should support his policies? Of course not. It’s time for people to get back to disagreeing civilly, however.
…..The political right has legitimate arguments to make with the Obama administration. This one, however, is simply shameful.
An editorial in the Dallas Morning News ends this way:
Adults teach children by example. What lessons are those blowing their tops over a presidential address passing on to youths? Is this really going to help the next generation learn how to engage thoughtfully and respectfully with elected leaders? Skepticism of those in power is a healthy instinct, necessary to a vigorous democracy. Skepticism unhinged from reason becomes paranoia and undermines the rational foundations upon which democratic self-government depends.
Part of the problem here is a function of our constitutional framework. In many countries, the head of state is not the same person as the head of government. In the United Kingdom, for example, the monarch serves a different function from the prime minister. Under the U.S. system, the president does both – which gives this or any other president a special responsibility to keep his ceremonial duties distinct from his partisan ones.
In this instance, many folks are confusing Obama’s political role with his presidential one. It’s dismaying to see so many Americans assume the worst about the president – our president – and his motives. Is this really the kind of country we want to be?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.