Looks like the Democrats did a little “Going Overboard” themselves!
Via Bryon York over the Washington Examiner:
The controversy over President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. 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.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.'”
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.”
The problem was that there was no harm done at all:
Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. “The speech itself and the use of the department’s funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal,” the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. “The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda.”
The real sick and sad part is….this:
That didn’t stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it “cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers’ money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. — while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters.”
Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush’s speech itself, like Obama’s today, was entirely unremarkable. “Block out the kids who think it’s not cool to be smart,” the president told students. “If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they’re stuck in a dead end job. Don’t let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.
As I said yesterday; I feel that the reaction of the far right on this whole School speech was a bit of an overreaction. I believe in legitimate criticism of the President’s policies; when they are based on facts. But when they are based on paranoia and fear-mongering —- or worse, racism. That is when I have to politely object to the protests and howling of the far right. Personally, I do not feel that there is anything wrong with the Presidents encouraging young people to do well. Yes, I am aware of the books that some teachers were going to pass out and then quickly withdraw amid protests from parents. I am also aware of the subtext and context of recent events. But to say that this was a attempt at indoctrination or subterfuge to possess the minds of our young people, is a bit a stretch. If anything, it was a poorly planned or even possibly poorly timed event. Heck, for all we know, this school speech may have been planned long before this Van Jones controversy even broke.
I just believe that it is most tragic, is that the far right is making the same tragic reactionary mistakes, that the far left made during the tenure of the Bush Administration. The question that we Conservatives must ask ourselves is this; what exactly did the far left’s reactionary actions accomplish? The answer is, if you are being intellectually honest, is nothing. My question to my fellow Republican and Conservative Bloggers is this; do we really want to make the same tragic mistakes as the left did, during the Bush Administration? Do we really want to be known as the Party of reactionary politics?
I realize that some of my readers might be thinking; “This is coming from the same person, who wanted to see Obama’s Original long form Birth Certificate.” and I would like to see it. But I do not believe that it should define Conservatism or our movement of being the “Loyal Opposition.” This is why I do not really like to identify myself as a “Birther”; because I just really do not feel that we as Conservatives should be wasting our name on such trivial matters as this and over a school speech. What we should be focusing on, is the important issues, such as Obama’s attempt to push Socialized Healthcare and other such important matters, such as Foreign Policy and other such important matters.
Hopefully, you understand my feelings here.
Update: Of Course, stuff like this isn’t helping either…. Ugh. 🙄