The Big Nothing

Posted by Larry Miller on September 9, 2009 under Why | Be the First to Comment

Barack Hussein Obama made his American classroom debut, cutting into busy first day schedule of many teachers, missing some who started the next day. The timing did, however, obscure the actions of a California judge who set a hearing date to look into the presidential birth certificate matter. The soaring rhetoric was gone… possibly to stay within the understanding of the younger members of his audience, and it just might be that some of his strongest supporters may have understood him for the first time.

There was the usual collection of cliches intermixed with some personal stories of the sacrifices his mother made for him along the way. He said the right things… or his teleprompter did. The only line that may have been troublesome was when he fell into the community organizer mode and told the young impressionable minds that they should study and work to make the nation more fair and free. This really begs the question of what the speech would have been like absent the public outcry. Some reports thought the speech was inspiring, and it might have been if one was an awestruck fifth grader.

For those of us who have had our fill of the false statements coming out of the presidential mouth it was fairly apparent that he was applying Saul Alinisky’s Rule Number Two about keeping your verbiage within the scope expected by the audience. The President said all the right things and in the process gave his supporters reason to claim the detractors were just paranoid.

Perhaps the irate parents reaction was just learned response combined with protective instincts toward their children. This president has a history of saying and doing things that run counter to our traditional American values, so it is understandable… especially in view of the initial set of instructions to the teachers that had the children writing down ways they could help the President implement his nefarious schemes – my terms, not theirs.

Many reporters went out of their way to belittle and caricature the concerned parents. Their fearless leader (apologies to Rocky and Bullwinkle) was coming down from Mount White House to impart his wisdom to the children of the peasants. The parents should be grateful we were told. While he is not the president, one has to wonder if the reaction would be the same if a near universally respected preacher like Billy Graham were to encourage students to stay in school and study hard. We would most likely have a YouTube overrun with televised conniption fits. Yet, the statist religion is not only accepted, but promoted by the President’s lackeys in the media.

Unfortunately it is virtually impossible to separate the office from politics and political considerations. Since almost everything the man does impacts the publics perception of him and his job, it’s hard not to look at everything Obama does as being politically inspired because it does have political impact.

During my school days of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, the President was a big deal as well as anything having to do with him. Had the President made a speech just for us kids, I would have hung on every word, regardless of party or reputation… at least during my early years, and that is the way it should be. In any event, the whole thing turned out to be pretty much of a big nothing – yet it’s hopeful that many of the impressionable young minds picked up on on his message of hard work and personal responsibility.

That is the same personal responsibility the whole Obama administration is working to take over for each and every one of us. This minor point does sort of lead one to question the sincerity behind the cliché ridden talk. In spite of the humdrum nature of the whole event, given the teflon nature of the man in the oval office, he probably still made some gains and got a few more people to like him… and that fulfilled his primary need in life.