Obama in the Classroom

Many of the biggest critics of Obama’s address to the nation’s public school students today backed off at the last minute. Newt Gingrich, Laura Bush and Jim Greer ultimately endorsed the speech, with Gingrich pointing out that Republican presidents have done similar things before.

Apparently, the critique for many was that Obama would try to push a leftist socialist message in his talk. Once it was discovered to be a generic “stay-in-school” kind of message, many conservatives flip-flopped and urged people to listen to it.

But of course, the real problem remains. Why did the president address the nation’s public schools? Why are the national government and especially the presidency seen as relevant institutions for education nationwide? It is troubling that so many would come out to support such a speech simply because the overt, controversial statist elements did not come through as expected, leaving intact the more generally accepted nationalist statist indoctrination we can expect from the public schools on a daily basis.