Blake's Think Tank

The far right’s outlandish obsession over President Barack Obama’s speech at a Virginia high school continues today, and the matter has hit home here in Arkansas. Reading today’s Arkansas Democrat Gazette I noticed that the city of Cabot would not be showing the address. Robert Martin, director of student services for the Cabot school district, said, “We’re not getting involved in any type of a political thing.”

Political? In what way? This is a speech about the importance of staying in school and working hard. The White House has been very clear that this speech has nothing to do with politics. White House deputy policy director Heather Higginbottom said, “It’s simply a plea to students to really take their learning seriously. Find out what they’re good at. Set goals. And take the school year seriously.”

Anyway, that’s not nearly as sad as this comment from Oklahoma state Sen. Steven Russell,

As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education – it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Elsewhere, Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said that Mr. Obama was an effort to “spread President Obama’s socialist ideology” and “justify his positions” on healthcare, the economy and taxes. He appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night and appeared as silly and outrageous as his claims would indicate. And he admitted he had no problem with presidents addressing students.

This morning on “Morning Joe,” former Republican congressman Joe Scarbrough called for Republicans, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, to denounce this rhetoric.

Death panels, shouters and nonsensical statements about a speech to children. “It’s just silly,” said Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report. “But now is not the time for silly.”

Reading Rod Dreher’s blog CrunchyCon, a conservative take on politics and religion, I see that he views these reactions as out of control. He writes,

A Texas Republican friend this morning told me two things: a) not all conservatives agree with these people; and b) that said, this is the last straw for him, that he doesn’t want to be associated in any way with the GOP, which in his view has lost its collective mind.

UPDATE: Joe Klein of TIME notes that many Republicans, including Mr. Scarbrough, David Frum and John Podhoretz are speaking out against the proposed boycott of President Obama’s speech next week.

UPDATE II: Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly encouraged President Obama to share his experiences with America’s school children in a op-ed that appeared in Parade magazine on August 9.

UPDATE III: Michelle Cottle blogging at The New Republic writes,

Take everything I said yesterday about this being a pathetic moment in our nation’s history and cube it. I considered George W. Bush to be a misguided, incompetent, possibly dangerous president with whom I agreed about very little, but I would have had zero problem with a speech by him on the importance of working hard in school being aired in my children’s classrooms. Why? Because it would never have occurred to me that Bush had some sinister plan to recruit my kids into his conservative army. Call me naive, but I just don’t lose sleep over the idea that some hulking right-wing machine is scheming to brainwash my offspring.