Flailing: Right-Wing Media Scramble To Find Attacks On Obama's Jobs Address

From Media Matters

Right-wing media have continued their long history of attacking President Obama's speeches by scrambling to criticize his September 8 address in which he proposed the American Jobs Act.

Right-Wing Media Flail In Attempt To Criticize Obama's Jobs Address

Doocy: Obama Repeated "Pass It Right Away" Like "One Of Those Guys On A Late-Night Infomercial." On the September 9 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy, after playing a montage of President Obama urging Congress to pass the American Jobs Act, claimed Obama was "[k]ind of almost like one of those guys on a late-night infomercial. Act before midnight! You should pass it right away. In all, he said that phrase about -- pass it right away -- 18 times, I heard somebody say last night on the radio. OK, so last night he's saying, you should pass it right away. Eighteen times." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 9/9/11, via Media Matters]

Hannity: Obama's Plan Is "A Massive Giveaway Of Government Goodies." On the September 8 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity attacked Obama's plan, claiming it was a "massive giveaway of government goodies" and that Obama "included a swipe ... at his political foes." FromHannity:

HANNITY: President Obama just unveiled the jobs plan that we've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for. Just to an address to a Joint Session of Congress that sounded more like a candidate stump speech than a president's policy proposal. Now, the anointed one and his economic team had months to hammer out the terms of the American Jobs Act. And tonight, the president proposed a massive giveaway of government goodies, to everybody, from teachers to small business owners, to construction workers. All paid for with, well, he's not quite sure, except, of course, for this.

[...]

Now, since it seems like the words "stimulus" and "tax hikes" were thrown out by the president's pollsters before the speech, well, I think that's the president's new call to tax the rich. And given that it was President Obama himself who delivered the speech, it also included a swipe -- what a shock -- at his political foes.

[...]

You know, basic protections, there were always there, like Obamacare and Cash for Clunkers. You know, urgent legislation that the president used his political capital to ram through when he had majorities in both houses of Congress. Now, if that does not tell you what this man's priorities are, I don't know what does. [Fox News, Hannity, 9/8/11, via Media Matters]

Miller: "It Was A Great Speech" But "There Was No Mention Of Unity Or 9-11." On the September 8 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox News contributor Judith Miller said "it was a great speech" but "it was devoid of substance" and later complained "there was no mention of unity or 9-11." [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 9/8/11, via Media Matters]

Breitbart: Obama Was "Looking To Get Mommy And Daddy (Congress) To Open Up Its Checkbook Again." A September 9 post on the right-wing blog Big Government quoted blogger Andrew Breitbart as saying:

The sometimes quasi-conciliatory tone in his speech contradicts his and Big Labor's Labor Day declaration of 'war' against GOP 'barbarians' and 'sons of bitches'. Looking to get mommy and daddy (Congress) to open up its checkbook again will cause some behavioral modification. His presidency is effectively over. But that doesn't mean the press can't go full-court press to pretend otherwise as it goes to hyperdrive trying to turn the country's ire on the Republicans. [Big Government, 9/9/11]

Morrissey: "Obama Simply Acted As If The" Energy "Problem Doesn't Exist At All." In a September 9 post on Hot Air, conservative blogger Ed Morrissey wrote:

Barack Obama's supporters praised him for having it in his joint-session speech last night on job creation.  A national economy needs plenty of it in order to expand.  Consumers consider it one of the most pressing economic issues they face.  Yet Obama's speech was curiously absent of any mention of one word ... energy.

That's right; you could look it up.  There wasn't one single mention in a speech about jobs and economic stimulation that addressed the need for the energy necessary to support it.  Never mind that part of the problem in the economy comes from a blunted demand that can be directly associated in part with the erosion in buying power created by rapidly-rising fuel costs, or that a significant share of the reluctance to invest in American economic expansion comes from the considerable uncertainty of regulatory assaults on energy production and the impact on future energy costs.

Obama simply acted as if the problem doesn't exist at all. [Hot Air, 9/9/11]

NRO: "A Stale Speech." In a September 8 post on National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson wrote:

Obama must be in a time warp -- he thinks the content of his speech is new, or can be made new by more soaring cadences. It's almost as if he is oblivious to the fact that, before calling for nearly half a trillion dollars in government borrowing to jumpstart temporary job creation tonight, he already oversaw a failed $800 million stimulus, "shovel-ready" jobs that were later admitted to be not so shovel-ready, "millions of green jobs" talk leading to sweetheart loans to now-bankrupt crony companies, nearly $5 trillion in new borrowing, and massive new financial and environmental regulations. Been there, done that.

[...]

Why all that straw-man caricaturing ad nauseam, when after three years it is well beyond old and stale and, what's more, Obama has a desperate need now for bipartisan support? Is Obama just politically dense, or he is so inured to the Chicago us/them confrontational mentality that he knows no politics other than polarization, even when appealing for help? [National Review Online, 9/8/11]

Malkin: Obama "Uttered The Word 'Individual' " With "Contempt." In a September 8 post on her blog, Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin wrote:

A few things I found striking:

1)The contempt with which Obama uttered the word "individual" as he repudiated the tradition of American rugged individualism.

2) The new nativist theme of the White House through the repeated "We're American! This is America! Americaaaa!" exhortations of the Citizen of the World-in-chief.

Shorter Obama: Collectivism is all-American, you sons-of-b*tches. Now pass the bill now that I am proposing, but which no one has seen or introduced yet. NOW! [MichelleMalkin.com, 9/8/11]

Right-Wing Media Consistently Attack Obama's Speeches

Right-Wing Media Attacked Obama's 2009 Cairo Address. Right-wing media attacked Obama's 2009 address in Cairo, Egypt, on relations with the Muslim world.

For more on the right-wing media's attack on Obama's Cairo speech, SEE HERE.

Right-Wing Media Launched Kitchen Sink Attack On Obama's Afghanistan Speech. Right-wing media launched multiple attacks on Obama's June 22 address on troop withdrawals in Afghanistan.

For more on the right-wing media's attack on Obama's Afghanistan speech, SEE HERE.

Right-Wing Media Attacked Obama's 2011 State Of The Union Address. Right-wing media attacked Obama's 2011 State of the Union address.

For more information about the right-wing media's attack on Obama's 2011 State of the Union address,SEE HERE.

Right-Wing Media Attacked Obama's 2010 State Of The Union Address. Right-wing media also attacked Obama's 2010 State of the Union address.

For more on about the right-wing media's attack on Obama's 2010 State of the Union address, SEE HERE.

Right-Wing Media Attacked Obama's Memorial Address Honoring The Victims Of The January Tucson Shooting. Right-wing media attacked Obama's memorial speech following the January shooting in Tucson, AZ.

For more on about the right-wing media's attack on Obama's Tucson speech, SEE HERE.

Media turn to discredited Bush officials to respond to Obama's Iraq speech

From Media Matters Following President Obama's speech on the end of combat operations in Iraq, media outlets hosted discredited Bush administration officials Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, and Ari Fleischer to respond, despite the fact that the three were at the forefront of the campaign of misinformation used to sell the war. Rove led WH group that "promoted" view that Saddam had WMDs "and was seeking more" White House Iraq Group was formed to "set [messaging] strategy" for going to war with Iraq. The Washington Post reported in 2003 (accessed via Nexis), that the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was formed in August 2002 "to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it 'an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.' " Part of WHIG's mission, according to the Post, was to decide "what to demand of the United Nations in the president's Sept. 12 [2002] address to the General Assembly, when to take the issue to Congress, and how to frame the conflict with Iraq in the midterm election campaign that began in earnest after Labor Day." Rove was a regular participant in this group. WHIG promoted view that Saddam "had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more." The Los Angeles Times reported on August 25, 2005, (accessed via Nexis) that WHIG "promoted the view that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more": The group consisted of Rove, Libby, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, and Mary Matalin, Cheney's media advisor. All are believed to have been questioned in the leak case; papers and e-mails about the group were subpoenaed. Before the war, this Iraq group promoted the view that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more. In September 2002, the White House embraced a British report asserting that "Iraq has sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The Washington Post further reported that WHIG "assigned Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the 'grave and gathering danger' of Iraq's allegedly 'reconstituted' nuclear program." From the October 30, 2005, article (accessed via Nexis): By summer 2002, the White House Iraq Group assigned Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq's allegedly "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. Wilkinson gave prominent place to the claim that Iraq "sought uranium oxide, an essential ingredient in the enrichment process, from Africa." That claim, along with repeated use of the "mushroom cloud" image by top officials beginning in September, became the emotional heart of the case against Iraq. Rove repeatedly politicized national security issues, including the war in Iraq, and actively encouraged GOP to campaign on the issue. Think Progress has documented Rove's repeated politicization of the Iraq war and his encouragement that Republicans campaign on the issue in 2002, which included (emphasis in original): In January 2002, Rove told conservatives, "Americans trust the Republicans to do a better job of keeping our communities and our families safe...We can also go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." [...] In June 2002, Rove was giving PowerPoint presentations candidates advising them to "focus on the war" in their fall campaigns. In September 2002, Time reported that when friends asked whether Bush planned to invade Iraq, Rove was been [sic] known to reply, "Let me put it this way: If you want to see Baghdad, you'd better visit soon." In addition, according to an April 5, 2003, The New York Times article (accessed via Nexis), Rove worked "busily ... to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends. The Times quoted Rove as saying, "The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator's regime will be ended." From the Times: The White House portrays Karl Rove, President Bush's most influential political adviser, as playing no role in military decisions that are shaping the Bush presidency. But more than two weeks after the war began, Mr. Rove is busily working to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends. Tonight, Mr. Rove traveled here to tend to the Republican troops at the Texas Night fund-raising celebration of the Kent County Republican Committee. "The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator's regime will be ended," Mr. Rove declared after taking the stage to chants of "U.S.A.!" in a cavernous hanger filled with the local party faithful wearing Texas-style cowboy boots, hats and bandanas. Beyond courting Republicans at party events, Mr. Rove has in recent days been counseling Congressional Republicans and conservative groups on how to advance their domestic agenda even while attention is on Iraq. This week, he held forth at a lunch with conservative commentators and journalists. Some participants had backed the administration on Iraq when it faced criticism that the war plan provided insufficient force and that it had been overly optimistic about Iraqi resistance. Hadley took responsibility for infamous "16 words" in Bush's State of the Union address Hadley reportedly accepted responsibility for the infamous "16 words" incident, in which Bush claimed, "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." On January 28, 2003, as part of his State of the Union address, President Bush made the now-infamous claim that "[t]he British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a claim that was highly disputed and which turned out to be false. In 2003, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley reportedly accepted responsibility for the line appearing in Bush's address, despite having received two memos and a phone call from CIA Director George Tenet three months earlier raising objections to its inclusion in prior speeches. From a July 2003 FoxNews.com article: Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in a rare on-the-record session with reporters, said that he had received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from agency Director George Tenet last October raising objections to an allegation that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Africa to use in building nuclear weapons. As a result, Hadley said the offending passage was excised from a speech on Iraq the president gave in Cincinnati last Oct. 7. But Hadley suggested that details from the memos and phone call had slipped from his attention as the State of the Union was being put together. The false claim was credited as one of the bases for shifting public support for the war. As a July 2003 New York Times analysis noted: The speeches worked. Public opposition to the war, never fierce, began to melt, polls show, and by mid-March, when hostilities began, more than 60 percent agreed that ousting Mr. Hussein was worth spilling American blood. Today, those 16 words haunt the administration. They are the best-remembered flourish in a portrait of Iraq that today seems unrecognizable. They are a leading rationale for a war that has resulted in the death of 224 Americans. And they are either unsubstantiated or based on a lie. Hadley was also a part of the White House Iraq Group. According to a 2003 Washington Post report, Hadley was a "regular participant" in WHIG meetings. From The Washington Post: The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. Fleischer repeatedly hyped the nonexistent threat of WMD to pitch war As press secretary, Fleischer was responsible for pitching the Iraq war, which he often did by hyping the nonexistent threat of weapons of mass destruction. Ari Fleischer was the White House press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003. As press secretary, Fleischer was responsible for a number of false or misleading claims regarding Iraq and Saddam Hussein, including: * "I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found." [4/10/03] * "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly ... all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." [3/21/03] * "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." [1/9/03] * "Saddam Hussein does not exactly have a track record of telling the world the truth. So he, on December 8th, has to indicate whether or not he has weapons. Let's see what he says. If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." [12/2/02] * "[G]iven the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice." [3/21/03] * "[W]hen you take a look at the level of violence inside of Iraq, it is impossible to argue anything other than violence has, indeed, come down as a result of America's military operations." [6/25/03] * "There is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly. ... And all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." [3/21/03] Despite their history, media turns to Hadley, Fleischer and Rove to respond to Obama's speech Kilmeade hosts Hadley to discuss whether "the president is finally acknowledging the previous administration was...on the right track in the middle east overall." On the September 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade hosted two Bush administration officials, Margaret O'Sullivan and Hadley, to discuss whether "the president is finally acknowledging the previous administration was right - was on the right track in the Middle East overall." MSNBC's Morning Joe hosts Fleischer to defend Bush and compare invading Iraq to invading Nazi Germany. On September 1, MSNBC's Morning Joe hosted Fleischer to defend Bush for invading Iraq, and Fleischer compared Iraq to the invasion of Nazi Germany: FLEISCHER: Probably the most profound meeting I ever sat on at the White House was a meeting with Elie Weisel. Just President Bush, Elie Wiesel, Condi Rice was there and myself. And the president asked Elie Wiesel - Nobel Peace Prize winner, Holocaust survivor - should he remove Saddam [Hussein]. Wiesel said yes, and then he added, "If only the world had listened to Winston Churchill in 1938 or 1939, World War II and the Holocaust could have been avoided. And I thought to myself, if the world had listened to Churchill in '38, people probably would've said "you exaggerated the threat of Hitler. You know, who says there was a World War coming?" We'll never know what we averted by getting rid of Saddam and how many lives were saved as a result of removing the threat of Saddam Hussein. Rove: "This was not a well-delivered speech." On September 1, Fox News' On the Record with Greta van Sustern hosted Rove to attack Obama's Iraq speech, saying: "[T]his was not a well-delivered speech." Rove called Obama's mention of Bush "an attempt at graciousness" that "didn't succeed," and he criticized Obama for not taking a "confident" tone that showed "a celebration of what has happened" in Iraq "to this point."

FoxNews.com edits out applause during Obama’s West Point speech.

By Ben Armbruster In his commencement address to graduating West Point cadets on Saturday, the President outlined his upcoming national security strategy that is focused on international cooperation to meet the nation’s security challenges. He also praised American troops for their performance in Iraq. “A lesser Army might have seen its spirit broken,” he said, adding that “through their competence and creativity and courage, we are poised to end our combat mission in Iraq this summer.” At that point, cadets and the audience applauded for at least 12 seconds (starting at roughly the 10:24 mark here). However, as Michael Moore observed, video from the speech on FoxNews.com edits out that applause entirely, making it appear as if Obama is bizarrely staring silently for a long period of time. The audio is cut (starting at the 0:44 mark) for the 12 seconds of applause, and then skips to another part of the speech. Watch it (the first clip is from FoxNews.com, the second clip is from WhiteHouse.gov): Media Matters’ Jamison Foser asks, “Now, maybe Fox didn’t intentionally remove the audience applause. Maybe Fox’s video used a direct feed from Obama’s microphone, and it simply didn’t pick up audience noise. But if Fox didn’t intentionally try to make Obama look silly, why did it choose a 2-minute clip — out of a 32-minute speech — that portrayed Obama looking silently around the room, seemingly for no reason?”

Does Rove Think Reagan And Bush Were ‘Weak’ For Discussing The ‘Situation’ They Inherited?

By Matt Corley (sorry about that)

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama described the dire state of affairs he faced as he entered office a year ago. “One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt,” said Obama.

Conservatives, who often complain that Obama blames former President George W. Bush too much, did not appreciate Obama’s recitation of the facts. “The blaming of the past administration is pathetically unpresidential,” blogged National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez last night. On Fox News this morning, Brian Kilmeade asked former Bush adviser Karl Rove if it’s “good politics” to “bring up your predecessor and talk about your first year in office while looking back at his last year in office?” “No, I think it makes you look weak,” replied Rove. Watch it:

By Rove’s logic, conservative icon Ronald Reagan and his former boss George W. Bush were also “weak.” As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz noted last night, Reagan “devoted significant portions” of his 1982 State of the Union “to attacking President Carter’s administration for ‘the situation at this time last year’”:

To understand the State of the Union, we must look not only at where we are and where we’re going but where we’ve been. The situation at this time last year was truly ominous. [...]

First, we must understand what’s happening at the moment to the economy. Our current problems are not the product of the recovery program that’s only just now getting under way, as some would have you believe; they are the inheritance of decades of tax and tax, and spend and spend. [...]

The only alternative being offered to this economic program is a return to the policies that gave us a trillion-dollar debt, runaway inflation, runaway interest rates and unemployment.

Though it wasn’t technically a State of the Union address, when former President Bush first addressed a joint session of Congress in February 2001, he too cast aspersion on his predecessor’s legacy. “Last year, Government spending shot up 8 percent. That’s far more than our economy grew, far more than personal income grew, and far more than the rate of inflation,” said Bush. “We must take a different path.”

M.C.L comment: First off the bat why isn't Karl Rove isn't trading "favors" for his life in prison? And two the Bush White House and their whores in the right wing press blame Bill Clinton for the recession, heck the right wing even had a movie on ABC blaming the Clinton White House for 9.11 .

It seems our friends on the right always have memory issues when it comes to Bush blaming Bill Clinton for his failures while whining about President Obama who left the mess for him to clean up.

Obama Schoolchildren Speech Drives Right-Wing Batty

By:Jason Linkins

Yesterday, I noted that Florida's GOP Chair Jim Greer had heard about President Barack Obama's intention to address the schoolchildren of America on the occasion of the start of a new school year, and went quite mental, warning darkly that the address was nothing more than a dastardly inculcation into socialism and a viral spread of liberal propaganda. Naively, I imagined this would be a derangement confined to a few weird nobodies, but, duh, I forgot: everyone is crazy now. So, this matter has thus become a Thing. Let's dispense with the highlights!

Glenn Beck hit this early, in a hurry, announcing that he would be countering Obama's address by airing a "special one-hour broadcast next Tuesday on television on the indoctrination of your children." Naturally, new wacko-target Van Jones figured into Beck's remarks, along with a warning that the "republic is under attack" from a video that encourages kids to do homework and stuff:

The National Review's Mark Steyn told Rush Limbaugh's audience Wednesday that the video address was Obama's attempt to extend his "cult of personality." It should be noted that Steyn was willing to concede that the tactics didn't quite rise to the level of Saddam Hussein. Restraint! The conservative fringe may paradoxically refer to Obama as a socialist or a fascist, depending on the direction the wind is blowing that day, but they've thus far drawn the line at Baathist.

Newsbusters' Mark Finkelstein likened the move to Maoist China, the regime that taught Dick Cheney how to stop worrying and love the waterboard!

Say, here's an idea. Pres. Obama's quotations on a variety of topics could be assembled in a small book, and every citizen given one -- free of course -- by the government. Citizens would then be encouraged to meet and discuss "what can we infer the President believes is important" in every aspect of life.

Right, or, you know, alternately, the White House could just do a video where the President talks about the importance of setting educational goals and advises against dropping out of school.

Michelle Malkin worried that for the first time in human history, schoolchildren would be motivated hypnotically to rise up and seize the means of production through the assignment of pointless busywork:

So when the Department of Education directs schools to gather children 'round the TV monitors for Obama's pep talk and then do this...

* Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.

* Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Story continues below

...parents have every right to worry about their children being used as Political Guinea Pigs for Change.

No, Michelle, they pretty much don't! If we could all think practically for a moment, let me tell you how all of that stuff is going to play out. Students will be invited to maybe do some of this work, but within 24 hours, it will all be mostly forgotten about and never brought up again. Students will be concentrating on the actual schoolwork for which they receive actual grades. Teachers won't have the time to monitor the progress of any of this because they'll be too busy teaching to a battery of evaluation tests, to save their jobs and their schools' funding. A few students, real brownnosey types, might follow through with these ancillary assignments because they figure that doing so might help them get into college. They'll be wrong about that.

Oh, and there are also examples of fringey types equating the outreach effort to the Civilian National Security Force and "Hitler youth brigades" and admonishing, "Leave our kids alone!" It's like the right wing blogosphere went home, dosed themselves with mescaline and sat around watching History Channel reruns on mute while Pink Floyd's The Wall played in the background.

And now, conservatives are encouraging parents to keep their kids home from school that day. From Newsmax:

The fascist in chief is taking his special brand of brainwashing to the classroom. Keep your kids home. I think this man is a threat to our basic unalienable rights. I don't want him indoctrinating my children. Seriously.

Seriously!

Anyway, here are a lot of actual facts, that Jake Tapper rounded up by doing sensible reporting.

The part of the busywork materials that scared so many right-wingers, where kids are encouraged to "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president," has been changed. Instead, kids are encouraged to "Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short‐term and long‐term education goals." Tapper reports: "The idea, [White House spokesman Tommy] Vietor said, was that students should think of how they could help the President in terms of reducing the national dropout rate."

And the content of the speech? Uhm...it's all pretty innocuous, actually!

"The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard in school, to not drop out and to meet short-term goals like behaving in class, doing their homework and goals that parents and teachers alike can agree are noble," a White House spokesman tells ABC News, "This isn't a policy speech. This is a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school."

And the kicker? Watching the speech will be an optional activity. You know... like so many other aspects of totalitarian regimes!

Anyway, that's the state of the world today. If President Obama reminded people tomorrow to brush between meals, thousands of people would allow their teeth to rot right out of their heads, because OMGZ TEH SOCIALISM! The upside to all of this is that after Tuesday, every teacher in the world will know precisely what students are going to need remedial help.

M.C.L. Comment: And people wonder why I hate the right wingers/conservatives it's because of crap like this, anytime anyone made a remotely negative comment about Bush these same losers claimed they had Osama Bin Laden hiding out in their basement or they want America to be hit again. The right wing excuse for this behavior now is a hand full of websites or people that compare Bush to Hitler, pretty much the right wingers are using the grade school defense of well Tommy did it too. When that mental midget Bush wanted to pass something every Republicans screamed up and down vote when Barack Obama wants to fix health care what do the Republicans say to that now? Go to town halls to shut down those Democratic town halls.

And the right wing attempts to stop President Obama speech to school children is just crazy when we just got out of an environment where if you spoke ill of President Bush you almost have to worry about losing your job. Could you image what would have been the fallout if ONE school district decided not to show President Bush speech to schoolkids? Man, Bill O'Reilly and that human horse crap patty Bernie Goldberg would be ranking that school district over the coals, Sean Hannity will be leading off with the story every night and going so far to get his dumb ass followers to harass the officials from that school district. Media whores like Michelle Malkin and the losers over at Newsbusters will be foaming at the mouth.

To the ass hats that go to these rallies with the Obama/Hitler signs I remember back in 2000 and 2004 those same people were telling people like me "like it or not President Bush is your president too" and I remember I used to get emails from right wingers saying things from if you don't like Bush being president then get out to false calls for unity. To those people follow your own advice suck it up and realize that Barack Obama is president or get out because looking at the Republican prospects for president he's going to be there until November of 2016.

Scarborough rips conservatives for seeking ratings by scaremongering about Obama’s education speech.

By Matt Corley

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that conservatives are freaking out over President Obama’s upcoming speech to schoolchildren about “persisting and succeeding in school,” claiming that it is actually aimed at political indoctrination. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, host Joe Scarborough ripped into the hyperventilating conservatives. “Seriously, why don’t we want the president of the United States, any president of the United States, delivering the message to kids: work hard, stay in school, succeed,” said Scarborough, adding, “get your ratings if you want, you’re just screwing your political party.” Watch it: