Reading the text of the speech it would appear to simply be one more exceptional example of Barack Obama's skill as a leader.

But to hear a small minority - who have taken advantage of a complacent, and therefore complicit majority - of the parents sited in the media you would think that their children were about to be molested.

Here is what I see as the essence of his message:

It could hardly be more appropriate. But that small, and quite frankly racist, minority that have misrepresented and misinterpreted every progressive attempt to fix the problems in this country are concerned less about discussing the content of the message than disparaging the messenger. Wake up folks.

I am so 'effin sick of all the partisan bullshit in this country. All the conservatives forget that Reagan and Bush the First both addressed students during their presidencies. But guess what...the uber-liberal nutjobs were up in arms over those speeches as well. And originally Obama was going to ask students to write essays about how to help the President and this is what made the conservatives heads explode so he changed that. But of course these people forget that Bush made the same exact request. It's all so ridiculous.

On FOX News over the weekend I saw them "interviewing" a woman who was keeping her kids out of school that day. She must have said "we can't trust thie President" 10 times in a two minute interview. She even used the Hitler Youth comparison. But remember whenever liberals questioned W they were all labeled unAmerican or unpatriotic?

Is it really racism? Really, there are those who are racist, and who see everything in those terms. But are these because he's black? Or does it come out of different philosophies? Opposition to Obama, to healthcare reform, to the war in Iraq, to the war in Afghanistan, to the bailout of the banks and big insurances, to the bonuses they got/are getting, to campaign finance reform, to whatever...are not necessarily racist. Save the card for when a trump is really needed. Unless Clinton was really black, and all that opposition was racism. And W Bush was really black, and all that vilification of the pseudo-nazi was racism. For the most part, the broad spectrum of this, it really isn't race. Because Obama's getting the bad, overworked hysteria from some fringe elements of the opposition, just as his predecessors did, imo.

And have the White House hire some better people, who should have anticipated that reaction to the extra cirricular "what can you do to help me?" and instead framed it as "what can you do to help your country" or "...to help yourself/your family/your future...". Don't have to cater to the loud mouthed spinmeisters, but don't overlook them either.

Honestly some of you guys south of the border get worked up over some pretty stupid things.
The President of the USA gives a speech urging kids to study and work hard so they can get good jobs and contribute to their countries development and that has some peoples heads exploding!! Even if he had continued as originally planned and asked for them to take some time and think and then write an essay with suggestions on what they would do to help what would have been so freaking wrong with that?!
When stories like this appear on CNN and other global newservices it is no wonder that people in other countries shake their heads and say "Only in America would telling kids to get a good education be a bad thing"

Preach it brotha sib!

You make good points Good Hands. And I should have made clear that I never consider racism the "goal" of such anti-social behavior, but simply a tool.

The prime motivation for negativity is always selfishness.

That doesn't make it any better but understanding it correctly is the best way to avoid or combat a problem.

I saw part of the speech live on the Internet, after I saw it tweeted by Barack Obama (or whoever ghost tweets for the prez).

Frankly, as much as I dislike our Canadian Prime Minister, I would be happy if he gave a similar speech to school kids in our country.

To me...this is another "smoke screen" topic to divert from the real problems in the United States, Iraq, healthcare, economy, etc. Perhaps, Obama should have a round of beers with the students of America!

I wonder if it was "smoke screen" to you when Reagn and Bush I did it.

Michael Vick addressed two schools yesterday. I bet no parents complained about that or kept their kids home from school. In fact I bet a couple of these model parents bought their kids a Vick Eagles jersey.

You know it's so funny...most of these parents have no idea what their kids are up to in school...If all these so-called concerned parents were concerned year round, paid attention to what their kids are eating, pushed to getter better and more phys ed is schools, worried about updated text books, made their kids put down the video game controller, joined the PTA, met the teachers, checked their kids homework, etc. then President Obama wouldn't have to give a speech at all.

I'm agreeing 100% GTf. Vick addressing kids is like the unibomber giving a college seminar on terrorism. So long as he's saying the right things it's fine.

But Obama isn't a recovering miscreant so the analogy does get a bit twisted. Still point well-taken.

BTW I wouldn't mind the current Bush giving lectures on how to avoid unjust wars. He could begin with how to select a less warmongering VP

All the brouhaha for nothing.

...I hope that this event can be used in future political advertisements in which the far-right is depicted as paranoid & out-of-touch megalomaniacs!

Exactly. Racism is there, for some, sometimes. It's critical that it is identified when it is. But when people are playing to racial fears/stereotypes/etc., or claiming racism to advance their agenda...that should be called out as manipulation, not racism. To mix it up plays right in to the hand of the manipulators.

And there are manipulators on both sides of the political spectrum. Whether it's crying racism when there are objections to Obama's plans/ideas, or crying facism when it's objection to Bush's plans/ideas, rather than believing the objections have merit on their own....whether it's always writing/saying "far right-wing" or "far-left"...whether it's saying the "far"left people are bad or the "far"right are evil when you don't actually believe it...that's cynical politics. And it distorts awareness of actual racism, or facism, or other examples.

Yes, I know, I want a utopia, where people are respected in the public discourse. But I believe that would actually help us identify when something is truly bad/evil/wrong and keep us from sliding down the slippery slope a little bit.

I think we could see a similar response if the public option is included in the final health care plan. To paraphrase a popular saying: success has a million owners and failure belongs to no one.

Virtually no one on medicare or medicaid wants it diminished much less eliminated. The same will be true for the public option.

And the loses experienced by the former two could be greatly reduced ,if not eliminated or reversed, if the public option succeeds in the intended goal of reducing the overall cost of the medical system by eliminating much of the fat encouraged by profiting from bureaucracy rather than delivering health services, and de-emphasizing preventive care in order to profit from the diseases caused by obesity, smoking, excessive use of legal mood-altering prescription meds and other lifestyle changes.

This over-reaction to Obama's school speech says a lot about why he did not push for the public option early.

For those who think the school speech was a diversion, tonight Obama is addressing congress on healthcare.

It will be streamed live on the Internet here at 8pm EST.

So one of the shcool districts that didn't show the obama speech is going to actually bus students to listen to George W. Bush as well as Laura Bush. Brilliant!

Can Texas just f**king secede already?

I hope it makes big time news & there's a national outcry over the double standard. These are the things that non-right wingers should be jumping on!

I honestly cannot say that racism motivated these fools from keeping their kids home from school. I've learned to never attribute something to malice when it could as easily be attributed to stupidity.

My thought on this is that these are simple people, stupid, if you will. All they watch is FOX News and all they hear is the gossip at their church socials, at the local coffee shop counter, or on Rush Limbaugh. They've been conditioned into thinking they, and only they, represent real America. Everyone else is a coastal socialist/crypto-commie who wants to turn America into some hemp-smoking, Maoist state where children are indocrinated into waving little red books and ratting on their conservative parents. It's going to sound elitist, but here it is: I feel sorry for many of these people. They have chosen to become ignorant about the real world. They are just stupid. Not malicious. Just stupid.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

...Altho I do think that there's a minority of right-wingers that are simply motivated out of racism. In other words, no matter what Prez Obama proposes racist Americans will oppose it just becuz of his race.