Kid video redux: Conservatives freak out over another video of kids "praising" Obama
Just days after claiming that a video showing elementary school kids in New Jersey singing a song about President Obama was evidence of "indoctrination," the conservative media are at it again -- this time flogging another video of kids performing at a PTA meeting in North Carolina. Hotair.com posted the video with the caption "liberal indoctrination camp," while Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy compared it to a Barack Obama "campaign commercial."
Conservatives again flog YouTube video of kids
Hotair.com: "liberal indoctrination camp." On September 28, conservative blog Hotair.com posted video of the kids -- with their faces clearly shown -- performing at a PTA meeting at Sand Hill Elementary School in Asheville, North Carolina, with the caption "liberal indoctrination camp." Hotair's Allahpundit wrote: "I'm honestly starting to lose count of how many of these there are. No 'mmm mmm mmm' in this one or creepy substitutions of The One for Jesus, but kudos to the teacher who came up with the 'change has come' drone. Reminds me of 'one of us, one of us.' "
Breitbart TV: "New Video Shows Kids Chanting Obama's Praise at NC School." Andrew Breitbart also posted video of the kids on September 28 with their faces clearly shown. He posted it with the caption " 'Change has come': New Video Shows Kids Chanting Obama's Praise at NC School."
Fox & Friends' Doocy: Video that he "saw ... on Hotair.com this morning" looks like an Obama "campaign commercial." On Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy, after mentioning the YouTube video from the New Jersey school, said: "So anyway, there is a new video that has surfaced. We saw it on Hotair.com this morning. These kids are in North Carolina, in Asheville, at the Sand Hill Elementary School. And once again they're saluting Barack Hussein Obama." After playing the video -- with the children's faces blurred out -- Doocy said: "It does sound like a campaign commercial where they are talking about change has come, change has come, yes, we can, yes, we can. I'm Barack Obama, and I approve that racket." [Fox & Friends, 9/29/09]
Flashback: Schoolchildren also sang songs honoring President Bush
Huffington Post: Kids sang songs praising Bush after Hurricane Katrina. According to a September 25 Huffington Post article -- despite the Republican National Committee's accusations that the kids singing about Obama at the elementary school in New Jersey amounted to "indoctrination of our nations [sic] ... children," "fanaticism," and "propaganda" -- schoolchildren also sang about President Bush. From the article:
Alas, such "propaganda" has not been limited to despots, dictators and the Obama White House. As a savvy source points out, back in 2006 children from Gulf Coast states serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the President, Congress, and Federal Emergency Management Agency for their response to -- of all things -- Hurricane Katrina. The lyrics were as follow:
Our country's stood beside us People have sent us aid. Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade. Congress, Bush and FEMA People across our land Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!
The event took place at that year's White House Easter Egg Roll and included roughly 100 children from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. President Bush, it seems, wasn't in attendance during the song itself. But he was there earlier, when the First Lady read the book, Will You Be My Friend: A Bunny and Bird Story by Nancy Tafuri, to the children.
"After the reading," the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, "Mr. Bush asked, 'Did you like this book? Does it tell you about what people can do to help other people, what bird did to help bunny? Be kind to him and give him shelter.'"
The weather that day was described as a "chilly rain" which must have seemed appropriate given the fact that the Gulf Coast children were actually thanking the administration for its feeble response to the hurricane.
Media recently fearmongered about New Jersey school kids "SHOCK VIDEO," claimed it's "indoctrination"
Conservative media: Video is "indoctrination." Numerous media figures, including Fox News' Monica Crowley, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck, and CNN's Lou Dobbs, claimed a video -- originally flogged by the Drudge Report -- that purported to show "[s]chool kids taught to praise Obama" was evidence of "indoctrination." Others compared the kids' performance to what might happen in a dictatorship. Beck said that the song sounded like "a hymnal for a dictator." Rush Limbaugh compared the school activity to those seen in Cuba and Venezuela. MSNBC's Contessa Brewer said it's something "you might see coming from North Korea." On Fox News' Hannity, guest S.E. Cupp said, "It's like Havana elementary school," and Nina Easton claimed, "Mao would be proud."
"SHOCK VIDEO" timeline: From YouTube, to conservative blogs and Drudge, to Fox News. Taking cues from conservative blogs and the Drudge Report, Fox News and its online properties promoted the video. Indeed, in discussing the significance of the story, Fox News host Megyn Kelly said that the video, which the school's superintendent has said was unauthorized, "is getting attention on the Drudge Report website this morning."
Conservatives fearmonger about kids to smear progressives. Beck and other right-wing media figures have recently fearmongered about how Obama and progressive policies will harm children; among other things, Beck and these other media figures have repeatedly accused Obama of "indoctrinating" schoolchildren, aired unauthorized videos of children singing Obama's praises, and attacked Obama's "school safety czar." On his September 28 television show, Beck continued the trend by hosting 9-12 Project mothers, along with their children, who are "concerned" about "their kids' futures."
Transcript
From the September 29 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: At the end of last week we showed you that video that apparently was done at a school in South Jersey, where they were praising Barack Obama, and one of the -- apparently it was all for Black --
JULIET HUDDY (guest co-host): Barack Hussein Obama.
DOOCY: That's the one. It was for Black History Month and stuff.
BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host): Mmm-mmm-mmm.
DOOCY: Well -- when you don't want to rhyme, that's all you say -- mmm-mmm-mmm. It worked for Campbell's.
KILMEADE: It worked for Campbell's. Yeah.
DOOCY: Yeah, exactly right. So anyway, there is a new video that has surfaced. We saw it on Hotair.com this morning. These kids are in North Carolina, in Asheville, at the Sand Hill Elementary School. And once again they're saluting Barack Hussein Obama.
CHILDREN [video clip]: Can we make America better? Yes, yes we can. Yes, yes, we can. [...] Change has come. Hope. Uniting blacks and whites. Hope. Being both Obama cannot take sides. Hope. Don't worry said hope. I will be your bridge. In time hope will be the bridge for others. Hope will last enough for you to make a difference.
HUDDY: Well, I think the interesting thing about this is where -- when it was actually done --
DOOCY: That's right.
HUDDY: -- this little routine. It was at a PTA meeting. So all the parents were sitting there.
DOOCY: And if they had a problem, they probably would have let people know right there. But, I mean, it does sound like a campaign commercial where they are talking about change has come, change has come, yes, we can, yes, we can. I'm Barack Obama, and I approve that racket.
I hope they continue to find more videos to show how the MAJORITY of the country DOES LOVE OBAMA and want to give him a chance to make the change that he campaigned about a reality.
I also hope none of the other networks pick this up UNLESS to tear FOX apart about the continued witch hunt to oust anyone who actually likes the CIC.
-------------------------
The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
Where do you get that silly idea? Gallup, Pew, CBS/NYT and most others still have him in the low to mid 50s. Rasmussen is the only outlier. In fact, here's what Gallup says:
Contrary to what dishonest or foolish rightwingers would have us believe, Obama's approval ratings are not in freefall. They're simply making adjustments that are very normal for first term Presidents.
We will get an American healthcare plan. We will keep pushing for a better, more perfect union as we clean up the trash that the right wing ideologues left in the public arena of our democracy and Obama will be re-elected. Overwhelmingly, again.
Why?
Because the right has nothing to offer except bitter partisanship, insults, lies and more of the same inflexible dogma that sank our economy and destroyed our sense of American community.
Yes, the rightys have vacated their seat at the table by letting the loony fringers discredit them.
And the RealTruthseeker? Nice, uplifting post. Thanks to you both.
And yrogerg1, I am right about this. The American public at large, beyond the raging right wing minority, has more common sense than the manipulative Republican sociopaths realize. Also, progressives are gaining footholds in national and local organization, aggressiveness in our moral mission and confidence as agents of change. This is our time now. We will not be cowed by a handful of hyper-violent, market fundie, GOP authoritarian thugs.
Rasmussen's daily index has Obama's approval index at -6 between people who "strongly approve" (32%) and "strongly disapprove" (38%). That's a major improvement... and upward approval trend from the beginning of September when the index was minus-double-digits between Aug. 22- Sept. 8.
Fortunately, it seems people who were influenced by the kooky-cons at the town hall meeetings in concert with the GOP health care reform misinformation campaign are more and more seeing through the crap.
To the dismay of the kooky-cons, the economy is starting to recover with the help of President Obama's leadership. And... like it or not... it's not a matter of "if" Congress will pass health care reform and the President sign it. It's a matter of "when".
Looks like the GOP "stall health care reform" campaign is backfiring. They wanted to wait it out to create opposition. But it seems that opposition does not have "staying power". After all, when you tell lies about the program, you have to try to support the lies with more lies. Eventually, you look like what you are... liars.
In the meantime, keep hanging onto your "high unemployment figures" as the only refuge for your arguments. In a few months, job creation will begin to bloom, and you won't have any more disaster to embrace.
Oh... I forget. You'll either manufacture a scandal as you did with President Clinton... or you'll claim false credit for the recovery, just like you tried to deflect the blame for this recession.
You can't be serious? If you at MM aren't a little bit creeped out by this, then imagine what alarms would be going off if this were George Bush they were being told to sing praises about! mmm mmm mmm
Hey...look over there! Psych!
Thanks.
http://theyoungconservative.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/reagan-statue.jpg
Imagine what will happen when someone builds a statue of BHO! The right-wing heads will explode ...
All you hear & see right now is finger-wagging from conservatives about "idol worship" or putting a single man above the office.
Seems like St. Ronnie Reagan is the natural exception to the rule, is it?
He ran up record debt with no benefit to the nation to show for it. The poverty levels increased, the middle class showed no gains, but the rich prospered. Unfortunately, they didn't invest those gains back into the economy the way supply-side economic theory said they should. Then there was trading arms for hostages in Iran-Contra, damaging our reputation in the world, again without any offsetting benefit. His administration provided Saddam with chemical weapons and supplied arms and training to Osama bin laden. School funding was cut. Remember they wanted to classify ketchup as a vegetable?
The best I can say about him is that he only gave lip service to what his followers wanted to hear on many social issues, (abortion, flag-burning, school prayer, etc.) but didn't actually try to do anything about them. It's funny that the people who wanted action on those things still thought he was on their side. AIDS became epidemic under his administration while they pretended it didn't exist.
He couldn't separate movies from reality, several times telling a story as truth that actually only happened in a movie. We're still paying for the SDI boondoggle. It's a myth that he had anything to do with the fall of the Soviet Union. That would have happened regardless of who was President. His administration had levels of corruption leading to legal action that has never been seen before or since.
Let's be specific about Reagan's achievements. Name your best point to prove that Reagan was a great prez. And then you will win a song lyric made up in your honor.
You could not have been an adult under Reagan's presidency and come to a conclusion like that.
Perhaps you need to read the again the mission statement in the "about us" tab at the top of the page. This is exactly what they are supposed to do. They monitor all media not just the news. Even fake, lying, not "remarkable" news. I suspect MMFA actions have the overwhelming support of donors and sponsors who support his site. If you don't like it then don't donate. Whining in the comments section will have no effect.
Adults would never do anything like that, too.
Some similarity??? How long has it been that you have attended church and had a minister or priest lead in prayer?
"Lord, hear our prayers" is not about political action.
There was absolutely nothing in it that came close to sounding like prayer to Obama.
Sure, there were prayers about McCain, not TO him!!
I'd give it a rest.
Really, really, creepy religious fervor, including speaking in tongues: check.
Conservative concern/denouncement: .........
Go figure.
'Cause, ya know, there was nothing weird or wrong about ramming Bush worship down the throats of rat-tailed children.
But some righty's did go off the deep end and claim that people prayed to Obama.
The people who behaved badly here? The righty's.
LAME.
This is sick.
And why haven't rightwing blogs and FoxNews gotten the message yet that they have to blur out the faces of kids?
If they want to provide that video for their readers, they need to capture the video and blur the faces themselves, and not provide a link that endangers kids by not masking who they are.
Oh, then there is the school named after the texas dummy which was done DURING his presidency.
In other words.....STFU you idiot reich wing moron hypocrits!
They sang about Obama in February during Black History Month, just a couple of weeks after Obama, the first Black President, was inaugurated! It's pride in our nation being able to elect a Black President.
EXACTLY! The audience for this had no problem, so why should anyone else. Adult Americans with freedom of choice allowed some children outside of the classroom (so the kid's parents must have known about the song, in fact they probably were at the meeting) to sing a song about Obama with no complaints until Fox got their hands on it and now people who have no business complaining, are complaining!
And calling the childrn's singing "racket", well, what an ...well after Van Jones, you're not supposed to call Republicans that anymore.
I hated Bush, I mean, HAAAAAAAATTTTEEEEEEDDDDDD BUSH, but even then, I wasn't dumb enough to come up with the crap these people are spreading. Comparing kids singing a song, to North Korea and Cuba. I'd love to see what they would say if these kids did a dance too.
Does anyone actually watch these fools ?
It is a fresco painted on the dome (Rotunda) of the U. S. Capitol building. It depicts George Washington being made a god.
The reason I bring this up is because I just read Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol and he goes into a detailed explanation of the fresco. I didn't remember it myself so I did some "crack research".
Sure enough, there it is.
Would the wingnuts consider that indoctrination, or just truth in art? Personnally, as much as I always admired Washington, I'm an Adams fan myself. But I guess they don't consider grouchy, old Puritans worthy of deification. :)
Glenn, it's right there, in plain sight. Our Congressmen and Senators walk under it everyday, not to mention tourists and impressionable school children. What could this mean, Glenn? Please tell us.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Can you believe that? I mean, it's like China, or something!
This video is 50 seconds of a 30 minute program honoring the nations leaders and heroes. The children helped with the selection of the people they featured plus what they wanted to say in the program. At the time of this program, Obama was a new President. He had not really done anything for the children to be able to recognize other than being the 1st African American President. Plus, at that time, the slogans and phrases they chose are words that are associated with Obama...and will be for a long time. People diasgreed with Obama's slogans and views but the words were not such a 'hot topic' as they are today. These children basically 'parroted' what they had been hearing in the campaign. Third graders are still young enough to feel important when someone speaks to them about being responsible and making a difference. They like to think they have power to make change happen. It was not a teacher shoving his/her political views into their minds and requiring them to participate in a 'praise Obama' rally.
Without the other videos that have surfaced- this one would be nothing. The parents gave a standing ovation at the end and the school received no complaints. I have children in this school, I have been on the PTO board and I consistently volunteer in the school. The man who posted this video has NOTHING to do with the school. His children do not attend it and he doesn't even live in the same town. He says he obtained it from a friend who works at a video store who copied it LAST YEAR from a video that was brought in to be copied. Our children have been exposed to the world. The news stations may have blocked their faces but not You Tube and all the other 1000's of sites that they are not on. The school has received threats severe enough to require police there all day. All because this person could post something he knew nothing about (he has never seen the entire program) but is quoted in the local paper as 'having a better quality video' than the others on the news. he ahs since removed his vide on You Tube and says he regrets posting it. but the damage is done - our School's reputation is tarnished and out children have bene exposed to any twisted mind who fixates on them and wants to come find them.