WRITE ME A LETTER ABOUT WAYS YOU CAN HELP US ACHIEVE OUR GOALS
An early transcript of President Obama’s address to the kids this Tuesday? Nope. That’s from a speech George H.W. Bush gave to students in a nationally televised speech.
Sucks when people have a brain and can remember.
October 1, 1991: President Bush asks school children to write him a letter then President Bush addressed school kids in a speech broadcast live to schools nationwide. Among other political stuff, he promoted his own administration's education policies. In closing, H.W. Bush told students something else:
"Let me know how you're doing. Write me a letter -- and I'm serious about this one -- write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals. I think you know the address."
Forget questions. Imagine if Obama said that. There would be Tea Parties and a National Day of Mourning. In this case, the right did not throw a fit and the left grumbled a bit about the president talking policy, no mention of the write me a letter part and help my administration.
Maybe that's what the Department of Education officials who wrote the questions remembered from there school days.
Good thing for Obama, everyone will be watching tomorrow. Except Junior, son of a birther, nephew of a deather, and future drop out. Because he is learning that if you might not like what you hear in school, you should skip that day. Great lesson.
Everyone else, enjoy the day. It's the single day the majority will remember 20 years from now.
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Comments: 24
No the real crock of horseshat is claiming that it ISNT about race Ivan.
I think some are just opposed to Obama because he is a democrat but for MOST of the righters on gather it is about race.
Obama is scary but Bush wasnt?
So how many times has Obama falsified intelligence reports in order to start a war?
What empirical evidence do you have to support such a charge, Lori? A few isolated comments by morons? Where's the academic study backed by verifiable statistics to back up your claim?
Or are you offering OPINION?
GHWB:....ways you can help US...
splitting hairs, maybe, but I do see a difference.
Having read President Obama's address, I see no "other political stuff" either.
Yeah, it does. I remember Bush being called a war criminal for indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects and conducting third-country renditions. Obama has continued both policies without the scathing criticism from the left. Bush was villified for claiming "state secrets" and supporting warrantless wiretapping, yet Obama sent his lawyers to court to argue in favor of both of those policies. Where's the outrage? Bush was lambasted for surging troops to Iraq without an exit strategy, yet Obama is executing a Bush-style surge in Afghanistan with no plan for getting out.
Hypocrisy is rampant in Washington. Both parties are guilty of it, and both conveniently forget past positions when the party in control switches.
It seems Democrats freaked out. From this morning's Washington Examiner:
"Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue."
"Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. 'The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,' Ford began. 'As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.'"
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/
beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-
investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html
Still this looks like inside the beltway reaction. Although I was ignorant of the dems reaction, there was no general population freak out on why Bush did that to their children, as far as I know. And I don't know everything. Correct me if I am wrong.
I did a quick google search, and while not a scientific result, found a fair mixture of stories, with some saying democrats in general (the public) were upset with Bush's speech, and some saying there wasn't the same degree of outrage as today. All things are relative, though, and democrats will be democrats while republicans will be republicans.
I think it's safe to say that the population as a whole has become more partisan since the 1990s.