Here Comes the President. Hide the Kids!

So the President wants to get the school year off with a speech to all the kids from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Under normal circumstances, this would not arouse my comment although it must be said that I do not recall any previous president doing this.

---

I do not recall schools announcing they would not let the President’s speech be heard by the children in their care and, most certainly, I do not recall parents saying they would rather keep their children home than have them exposed to the President’s message. I am not aware of what that message would be. There has been speculation that President Obama just wants to encourage children to stay in school, study hard, and listen to their teachers. The real message, however, is more subtle than that and people don’t like it. They don’t like the way, in the midst of a major recession, the President began his term in office by flying off to foreign lands, apologizing for America in one fashion or another, and saying strange things like America was not a Christian nation. Americans are not keen on the imposition of more than thirty “czars”, on top of the existing structure of the executive wing where, until now, the secretaries of various departments were understood to be in charge. And, worse, it turns out that one of those czars, Van Jones, is a communist and former community organizer. No, Obama’s message is the same one that all wannabe dictators seek to inculcate into the youth of the nation. It is the message that Hugo Chavez is imposing on Venezuela’s school system, magnifying himself into a god-like status. It’s the message that two generations in Cuba grew up with after Fidel took over in 1959. These days we call it a “cult of personality” and we know it when we see it. Americans have begun to conclude they have already see far too much of Barack Obama. He has held more primetime press conferences in the first months of his term than George W. Bush had in his eight years in office. This constant exposure goes well beyond the normal attention paid the President which, in itself, is a daily exercise of tea-leaf reading. This constant exposure is deliberate and, while rarely revealing anything specific, is intended to remind everyone that Barack Obama is President. Now he wants to reach into the nation’s schoolrooms with that message. He wants school children to know that they should turn to him because he occupies the highest office in the land. This process began during the 2008 campaign when Obama was lightly mocked as “the One” or “the Messiah” for the way his handlers presented him to the world. No one is laughing any more. He needs a youth corps that looks to him, not their parents or mentors for direction. Chairman Mao had his Red Guards and, of course, there were the famed Hitler Youth. None of this is the stuff of fiction. It was real. That’s why some schools are saying no and some parents will keep their children home when he speaks. This President is building a shadow government inside the White House, chosen appointees who will answer to him in “a crisis” and we all know “a crisis” is coming.

---