Save The Children! Obama Is Coming For Their Brainz

My pal and Bloggingheads buddy Matt Lewis has taken issue with my post today about how crazy this whole uproar about President Barack Obama‘s address to schoolchildren is (“President Obama Is Coming For Your Children“). Well, he sorta thinks President Obama is coming for your children — why isn’t the question for these kids, “What can you do to help America?” not “What can you do to help the President?” He doesn’t like all the Obama-based propaganda being thrown at schoolkids, and he thinks my suggestion that part of the vociferous response against All Things Obama is coded racism is ridonk.

Matt drew my attention to a video about Obama that I had forgotten about: the “I Pledge” video put together by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore for Inauguration, featuring celebs like Cameron Diaz, Jason Bateman, Eva Mendes, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, will.i.am, Jenna Elfman, Alyssa Milano, Gina Gershon, Diddy, Nicole Richie, Kevin Connolly, Lucy Liu, Molly Sims, a weirdly grown-up Dakota Fanning and others. Apparently some school in Utah showed the video to students, which a local conservative leader called “radical, leftist propaganda.” I think that might be a bit much but there is no doubt that a few of the personal “pledges” made by some participants dip into controversy somewhat.

Anyhow – you can read my initial post here and his response here. The response below was blurted out into the Townhall comments section, but it limits you to 2,000 character replies and I CLEARLY had more to say. Then Townhall spammed me utterly, leaving me smeary and covered in goo. Ew. But, it was that bad and I’m still dealing with it, so you can deal. Video below; my response to Matt below that.

Okay now my response:

Hi Matt! Wow you have such an active commenting community. OK a few things, since you mentioned it:

(1) I’m gonna paraphrase your fave band Pearl Jam here in quoting you: “Don’t call me racist, not fit to…” I get it. I’m not reducing this whole issue to that — if you’ll notice, you brought it up as your first point, and I raised it as a possible sublimated motivator far down in my post, after I’d addressed the issues on the merits. But that said — yes, I am going to stand by it. Not for everyone, certainly, but there is a vociferousness to some of the reactions that seems…extreme. I am not alone in noting various “code words” that pop up — our old friend Carlos Watson at MSNBC noted it too, here: http://blacksnob.com/snob_blog/2009/8/11/google-stalking-carlos-watson-socialist-the-new-n-word.html — his point was that the word “socialist” was pretty, er, broadly applied. That struck me about the “concerned mother” quoted in my piece — A school address? Socialist? Really? It seemed clear that the language she was using was part of a larger pattern.

(2) Okay — just watched the Obama/celeb vid. Saw and cringed at the 3 incidents you cited, though I will say that they were INDIVIDUAL pledges personal to these people, “so getting rid of my obnoxious car for a hybrid” makes the whole green-point self-deprecatingly. But! When Demi Moore says she’s gonna be his servant, or the muscly tattooed dude kisses his biceps for Obama — I agree, ew. But can we just get some perspective here: This video isn’t BY Obama, it’s ABOUT Obama. And while at 4:14 it’s WAY too long, it’s 4:14 of about 95% awesome, noble pledges about helping those in need and supporting specific causes and reducing waste. (The “smile more” I can do without. Eh.) Should the school have shown an edited version, or, you know, watched it first? Um, YEAH. But — apples and oranges, kids. And by the way, we SHOULD cut down water bottles and turn out the lights and be aware of and try to end sex slavery. We should. End of freaking story.

(3) I agree with you that the language of “helping America” is different than “helping the President.” But context is everything. So — if the president, who kids look up to no matter what, have you not seen movies? — is trying to instill a message of “stay in school, learn and aspire” then maybe “helping” him in that common goal isn’t such a bad thing? And more to the point, is that small semantic point really more important than recognizing that kids actually DO need that push and that educational resources aren’t equally provided across the country and that for some kids it really DOES require more work to keep at it?

You and your readers should check out DonorsChoose.org sometimes — it’s a website that lists small classroom projects and items that teachers/schools can’t afford. It invites people to donate whatever they can, in the hopes that the cumulative donations will meet the need. It’ll break your heart to read the kind of small-scale stuff they need, like PAPER so they can DRAW (that’s a project I funded). You can browse schools by region all across the country. It’s really an amazing site, but it is really indicative of just how great the need is. So — getting kids excited about learning on their own, thinking books are cool, whatever — that’s a huge boost. I am not saying there weren’t missteps in the execution. But I am saying that the outcry is completely disproportionate — and shifts the focus from what is really important.

(4) Civil disobedience and dissent truly go to the root of what makes this country great (and I say this as a Canadian who has chosen to live here!).

(5) At the risk of distracting you and your readers from #3, which is the important stuff…I’m pretty sure I remember rhetoric about not undermining the Commander in Chief in a time of war etc., etc. (Did a brief Google search, here‘s an example) – that kind of rhetoric was not uncommon a few years ago. So — can we just agree that there are hotheads and nimrods on both sides and call it a day?

If you do, I’ll pledge to donate $100 to Donors Choose — and invite you to match or outdo me. How’s that?

p.s. There is SO a portrait of Demi Moore growing old and wizened in an attic somewhere. Wow.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.