The WashPost's dreadful school "controversy" reporting
September 08, 2009 10:17 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Making sure not to note the idiocy of the right-wing attack on Obama's school speech, the WashPost, like most Beltway news outlets, carefully avoids telling the truth about this brain-dead controversy. (See that journalism trend detailed here.)
Today's Post headline:
President Seeks to Avoid Politics in Speech to Schools
The headline is flat-out inaccurate. There's no proof Obama today "seeks to avoid politics in the speech," because there's no proof Obama ever contemplated including politics in the speech in the first place. That allegation was manufactured by the right-wing and has always been based on nothing but run-away paranoia. Period.
Think of it this way. Imagine right-wingers had launched an hysterical crusade about how Obama was going to scare school children with a speech about invading aliens. But then the White House released the text of the speech and--voilà!--no mention of invading aliens, would the Post then print up a headline, "President Seeks to Avoid Aliens in Speech to Schools"?
The sad part is, considering how the press now willingly allows itself to be led around by the GOP Noise Machine, I'm afraid the answer would be yes, the Post would publish that headline.
UPDATED: The Post also plays nice with the right-wing nuts in this passage:
Republicans have called Obama's back-to-school address an inappropriate political intrusion into the classroom.
Again, flat-out inaccurate. Republicans didn't merely complain the speech was inappropriately political, they claimed Obama was going to "indoctrinate" kids with his "socialist" agenda. They compared him history's tyrants and mass murderers.
But at the Post, reporter Scott Wilson knows to clean up the craziness and to present Obama's "critics" as concerned and thoughtful, rather than hateful and unhinged.
I don't know about any of you but if I were in school and was kept out of school because of the President speaking, he would certainly have been my favorite President of ALL time.
These people are mindless fools.
I agree they are mindless fools since only a mindless fool would deprive their child of this.
I listened to GeorgeI speech on C-Span today and it was what you would expect of a President. The upcoming speech will be the same.
For the parents...it is for the KIDS.
Whew, how the left has changed now that they're under the spell of their dear leader.
That being said, I'll agree with you and call shullbit on the Dem's at the time, and admit that they were taking cheap partisan shots that were over the line. It didn't work out too well for them though, did it? Seems I recall a lot of them were out of their jobs by the end of Bush's term.
Oh well. Far be it for modern conservatives to learn from history.
the vast majority of people in this country were part of the public education system. i find it hilarious that they are no screeching about this since i would be even money that if this was done in their time that their parents would have told them to listen to the president and what was said.
but as with everything else when it comes to president obama, there is a double standard.
the only question is what will be the next bull crap rage be directed against.
First the article was entitled, "Obama set to deliver controversial school speech" which, it's really NOT a controversial speech at all.
And here is something telling. In a quote in the article, it stated:
""Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH last week, before the text of the speech was released.
"I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."
So let me get this straight Shanneen. Your kids are Americans, and you're an American, as you said (how can I tell though? Can you provide your birth certificate?), and somehow it's not OK for the leader of America to talk to, and give a speech to kids?
And exactly what is it you're scared of? The "scary" President giving your kid a speech in which he tells them to work hard, stay in school, and that if you have a good education, anything is possible?
Wow... Scary topics right there.
Just going to show, people, are freakin' ridiculously stupid.
They aren't necessarily stupid, but they're scared of the evil black man in the White House. They're scared that their kids will be exposed to a sensible, well-spoken, rational black man.
They're racists.
What has Obama done in his short time as President that is "scary"? I'm sure there is plenty that he's done that this woman can disagree with, and I'm sure that she does, but what has he done that is "scary"?
Nothing...
Spoken intelligently? After the last eight years, people just ain't used to that elitist behavior.
The local Fox station this moring was running with this story.
They mentioned that the president had removed language about "National Service" from the speech. Obviously just more spin on why the crazys thought the speech was bad.
What really bothers me here is that we have gone from "Ask not what the country can do for you" to "National Service" is bad.
Wasn't Kennedy basically saying the same thing? Don't sit back and wait on the governement to fix stuff, get off of you duff and help fix it yourself.
"But, Democrats aren't exactly blameless, either. They were the ones that criticized President Geirge H.W. Bush for making a similar address in 1991. They accused Republicans of using children as political pawns and questioned the use of federal dollars to stage the event."
Really? Did they accuse GHWB of trying to indoctrinate children? Did they make comparisons to North Korea? GHWB's speech wsas linked to passage of specific anti-drug legislation pending before Congress - so perhaps the idea that the speech was a form of "political advertising" ( a charge made by Richard Gephardt at the time ) isn't nearly as far-fetched - and certainly less personally destructive as the current right-wing attacks. For the WP to make a "false equivalence" between the two in their editorials only compounds the dishonesty in their reporting.