"indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda."

Did that sentence make anyone else laugh? I mean, I wasn't expecting something that crazy

Hey, we had a motion on the floor of our beginning of the year faculty meeting to have one minute of Rush broadcast for every minute of Obama's address.

The final compromise -- no Obama.

It's as if the whole party has gone stark raving mad.

There's no "as if" about it.

I can't wait for 2011 Republican Primaries. It will be like a contest to out-crazy each other.

What do you expect from the Party of "assholes".

I hope he's not going to read 'My Pet Goat' to them.

This isn't mad at all. It is a deliberate media strategy.

The intent here is to treat everything that Obama does or says as partisan and controversial (and steal the news cycle wherever possible). This way, GOP can agitate their base (who probably will never see or hear what actually happens in this message to the schoolkids) and deprive Obama of any aura of legitimacy that he would ordinarily get from being President.

This is right out of Newt Gingrich's playbook from the 1990's. It works, too.

I think living in the Right's manufactured echo chamber for a while either forces one to claw his way out or go stark raving mad. It's the herd mentality gone amuck and it doesn't just cause extreme polarization, it invokes rampaging insanity.

Steve writes:"Has Jim Greer suffered some kind of trauma recently that would explain something like this?"

Yes, he has- if watching Glen Beck is considered traumatic. . .

Many GOP leaders balked -- they said Greer isn't conservative enough.

It sounds as if he has learned his lesson.

Gee, it's almost like they'll throw a frigging tantrum no matter what he does. Even if he fulfilled their fondest wish and dropped dead they'd still defile his corpse.

Gee, Republicans used to constantly whine that more black men should be standing up to ask kids to work hard and persist in school to ensure that they have as many opportunities in life as possible.

But I guess that was before one got elected president of the United States of America.

The Florida GOP:

We're about keeping them in their place!

It makes sense that telling kids to work hard in school would offend the know-nothing party.

Did that sentence make anyone else laugh? I mean, I wasn't expecting something that crazy

Yes. And it takes a heap of crazy to be surprised by these crazies.

Gee, Republicans used to constantly whine that more black men should be standing up to ask black kids to work hard and persist in school to ensure that they have as many opportunities in life as possible.

Fixed.

The right-wing knows that "take responsibility" is a liberal code phrase that really means to euthanize your grandparents.

Yup, it does work, they're going to try and tear Obama apart, even if it takes a thousand or a million cuts. They only care about one thing-- Power-- and getting it back by any means necessary.

Over the next 3+ years we can all look forward to every symbolic thing that we did on the left in opposition to Bush (most of it actually earned by Bush's actions) mirrored by the right, based on nothing more than Obama just being elected president. Upside down flags? Sure. Obama puppets? Absolutely. Only they'll take it further, they'll burn Obama in effigy, they'll have mock executions of someone dressed up like Uncle Sam. Hell, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we start seeing rightwingers start burning the flag.

How does it feel to be on the other side of the looking glass, Alice?

What can we do? Mock them, make them public laughingstocks, make it seem like people that should not be taken seriously because they're IDIOTS. Where is Tina Fey when we need her?

Only they'll take it further......they'll have mock executions of someone dressed up like Uncle Sam.

Driving out west in Montana over the summer, I saw a custom window message that read "In Memory of The United States Of America 1776-2008". I thought it was a nice sticker, but clearly had a typo since the country died in 2001 not 2008.

There are still republicans out there who aren't stark raving mad. Some are principled conservatives who are open to ideas and governing responsibly. Problem is, their party is the captive of the certifiably insane. Say something sane and nobody pays any attention. Say something crazy and you get an audience. Say something sane and it gets you nowhere. Say something crazy and you're the future of the party. It sort of reminds me of the 50s and McCarthyism. Eventually there was someone in his party with the courage and stature to tell Tail-gunner Joe to shut up. Question is whether there is anyone in this Republican Party willing to take on the Limbaughs, Becks et al, to tell them to shut up and help move the GOP back among the mentally stable. Prospects for that happening don't look promising.

For Republicans, "socialist agenda" = showing any concern for your fellow citizens. Because if you can't step over the bodies of your starving neighbors as they lie in the gutter, what's the point of being a Christian?

Will, I wish I could say that it made me laugh in surprise. But as soon as the article stated that Obama would be addressing schoolchildren, I knew exactly where the story was going. Any time Obama shows his face in public, for any reason, in any official capacity, the GOP rage at his presumption for daring to defeat them last year ratchets up another notch. First it was the ridicule about his stupidity for using teleprompters, just like every President and just about every other public figure as well since Reagan. Then, everything he says, no matter how bland, was twisted to mean something sinister. And now it's presumed in advance that anything he could possibly say would be commie/socialist/fascist propaganda. As Bokonon says, this is classic GOP strategy to delegitimize a President of the opposing party. Republicans only accept the outcome of an election if they win it.

What is the big deal ?

If kids are challenged to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning, the republican party will cease to exist.

Who can blame the guy for wanting stupid lazy kids, they make great republicans.

They will do whatever it takes to demonize, dehumanize, delegitimize and denigrate President Obama. Every single action and word uttered from his mouth is fodder for the GOP noise machine. Every single member of his administration, every single supporter, his family, friends...all will be scrutinized and excoriated day after day after day.

It is NOT going to get better. We simply need to stand up to it. So, I as a parent of a student who attends a public school in Florida will make damned sure that my children watch the President's address and I will stand up to anyone who attempts to interfere with that.

I have no idea what is "socialistic" about using your bully pulpit and example to encourage young people to strive for academic success.

But then, these are people who came up with the domestic terrorist trope and can't seem to decide whether President Obama is a socialist, marxist, communist, nazi, fascist, the antichrist, Hitler himself reincarnated, or Chairman Mao himself reincarnated.

Awhile back I was listening to one of the right wing radio hosts, beck, hannity or rush, when they played a recording of Obama, they played it in a fast forward mode so he would sound like one of the chipmunks. They were afraid that his real voice would sound too sincere and reasonable. You can draw your own conclusions about their integrity.

This has now flared in the Houston area. It's just astonishing how paranoid some of these folks are.

I mean, seriously, do they think their precious little darlings even listen to speeches like this?

How do you spell the last name of the Republican Party Chairman from the great state of Florida? Well, obviously after such a screed as his above it is spelled I G N O R A M U S ! -Kevo

One gets the feeling that the entire GOP is on the verge of its "Homer Stokes jumping on stage and denouncing the Soggy Bottom Boys" moment.

T-Rex and ajaye -- I think you've really hit the nail on the head. Having diagnosed the problem so unblinkingly, what in the world are we to do to combat such an incessant, unprincipled, inexorable smear campaign? All I can think is that Obama needs someone -- a DNC chair with some backbone, perhaps? (Van Jones, anyone??) -- to state what you have said publicly and repeatedly, and start a drumbeat to be picked up by other Democrats until the media simply can't ignore the meme and everyone other than the extreme right wing recognizes each new smear for what it is.

A commenter on the Houston Chronicle article linked above (5:18) that I can't find now gave a response that explains a lot about the hysteria over Obama generally (paraphrasing): they're scared their kids will actually see the president in an an environment (at school) they cannot control, where they cannot challenge/refute/dismiss anything he says, and where he may actually turn out not to be so evil as they feared.

That, apparently, is what they mean by "indoctrination."

Andy -- Note they quoted a guy from Lumberton, one of the last bastions of the KKK.

Also a current comment on the Houston Chronicle story that is "featured" due to reader recommendations:

Jenn2150 wrote:
It is not the President's place to address our children during school hours without their parents readily available to answer questions. NO matter who the President is...just so happens the current one is the WORST and scariest to be given this right.

Methinks Freud would say she slipped in the last sentence.

The Party of No is so extreme and ridiculous that they would argue against the president were he to say "what a beautiful day" on a beautiful, sunny and clear 80 degree day.

What a joke.

this is a scorched earth political strategy. They are just trying to make sure nothing can be done.

Yes, our national debate has spun out of control largely because the mighty have massaged the ignorant to action. A tit for tat strategy would go something like this:

Those who vociferously disrupt town hall meetings, once they do lodge their complaints, anyone who can respond to them should offer support for their complaint just as soon as news is heard that the complainer has stopped beating his wife!

You know:

LOUD IGNORANT COMPLAINER: I don't want socialism to steal my Medicare.

SANE RESPONDER: I promise your Medicare will not be stolen just as soon as you stop beating your wife!

Ahh, to train one's self to be a FOXNEWS reporter! -Kevo

Do you remember the good ol' days, as recently as the mass hysteria known as the Bush presidency, when everybody was too civil to use the word, "lie"? Back then, it was "he misspoke", or something like that. Now, it's "Obama is using America's children to spread his liberal lies". Republicans are getting more ignorant as they get bolder, and they get steadily bolder as nobody calls them on their outrageous speech. What's it going to be next? That motherfucking black Obama is a fucking liar?

Somebody ought to drop round to see these people when they say things like this, and slap the shit out of them until they learn to keep civil tongues in their heads. Politicians get to feeling like they're untouchable. There'd be nothing like Jim Greer showing up the next day with a couple of shiners, to make an apologetic speech that maybe his tongue ran away with him, and he didn't mean to insult the president, to dispel that notion.

In Bush's day, calling him a liar was treason. I wouldn't go that far, but it's certainly disloyal.

It's so nice that the folks who brought us "Bush derangement syndrome" now have the opportunity to show us what real derangement looks like.

TonyB wrote:

Andy -- Note they quoted a guy from Lumberton, one of the last bastions of the KKK.

I would've said that was Vidor but, point taken.

I mean, seriously, do they think their precious little darlings even listen to speeches like this? -- Andy, @17:18

Ah, but they'll *have to*, you see... There are follow-up questions they'll have to answer.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/department-of-education-edits-out-help-the-president-from-classroom-materials-on-upcoming-speech.php#more

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/department-of-education-edits-out-help-the-president-from-classroom-materials-on-upcoming-speech.php#more

I cannot believe they caved and removed that phrase from the speech. I cannot believe it. The Republicans run this country at all times, whether they win elections are not. I am ashamed to be a Democrat.

One of the Chron commenters objected to his kid being exposed to a presidential address, without parents being present to "answer questions." After cogitating on it, I think I'm come up with a few that the kids might ask:

"He doesn't sound like he wants to kill Grandma"

"Where's that little mustache he has in those signs in the back of the truck?"

"He never said 'whitey' once."

Others?

For Republicans, "socialist agenda" = showing any concern for your fellow citizens. Because if you can't step over the bodies of your starving neighbors as they lie in the gutter, what's the point of being a Christian?

Posted by: Mnemosyne on September 2, 2009 at 5:08 PM | PERMALINK

My God absolutely dead on--bravo sir! or madam!

Glenn Beck picks up the story at Rockefeller Center where he discovers communistic art and Mussolini iconography

Really ...says it prefigures the National Indoctrination Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szlLM5lCNJg&feature=player_embedded

I cannot believe they caved and removed that phrase from the speech. -- Tropical Fats, @19:49

Me, I'm kinda glad they did. Reminded me too much of that Bushie Broad asking, after a Rove PPP, "now how can we help our president?". Made me uncomfortably itchy under the collar...

The president is a happenstance vessel of hopes deposited therein; the object in need of help is *the country* and the majority of its people.

Maybe we should start a rumor that the attendance lists from that day will be handed over to the Death Panels. Send your kid to school and you're fine. Keep him out and... tsk, tsk, *sound of syringe being readied*.

I'm going to repost w/o permission a letter Josh Marshall put up over at TPM, relative to Greer's disgusting, revolting display. I think this writer's sentiment needs to be internalized, NOW, by everyone on the left, center, and right who actually cares about this country:

"For months we've had a great time laughing and ridiculing the GOP as they've spewed one ridiculous outrage after another at Obama. We've treated each successive charge as more absurd and laughable than the last, responding only with derisive sarcasm. We howled with laughter at teabaggers after the stimulus only to have them brandish guns and become players at townhalls. We rolled our eyes at Palin's Death Panels, only to have month long national discussion over whether Obama wants to kill grandma and now veterans. Now we're going to discuss whether it's "appropriate" for the President to speak to schoolchildren? Really?

Enough is enough. Images of Obama as Hitler are now commonplace and, seemingly, unremarkable. It has become customary and usual for senior GOP officials to make outrageous, disparaging ad hominem remarks about the President. The crazy is becoming mainstream. Obama is in a real, tangible way now being delegitimized as a person and a leader."

This is it in a nutshell. Enough is enough. Americans who care even one iota about this country have to, starting now, start pushing back against this disgusting and destructive behavior. It's not "stark, raving mad," Mr. Benen - it's exactly what the above letter says it is: the personal and political deligitimization of President Obama. The President of the United States, according to mainstream leaders of the 'opposition party,' can't speak to American schoolkids because he's....the dreaded "other"? This shit isn't funny, it's not snark-worthy, and it's gone on far, far too long. Mr. Benen, Greer isn't "stark raving mad" - he's a traitor, a foulmouthed anti-American extremist whose seething hatred for America, Americans, and the President they overwhelmingly elected is crystal clear, as clear as this pig-dung's compulsive, pathological lying about the President of the United States. "Stark raving mad"? Hardly. America-hating, compulsively lying, dangerously radical extremist? That and more. It's time to put these f***ing shits to bed.

"as if"? Well, yes, actually, as-if is exactly right. They're not crazy. Not really. They're just using the only thing they have. Because they have nothing else.

The GOP has clearly decided on a strategy of total war here. They will be out there muddying the waters from now until forever. We've known for a long time they don't give a shit about the country. Just about themselves.

This crap is about them regaining power. They figure it might work. they have nothing else. so, this is what they do.

The traumatic event he has suffered is the 2008 presidential election.

For Democrats, there is an upside and downside to the breakdown of the right wing in this country. On the downside, the shouting is having an effect on independents: they naturally assume that where there is smoke, there is fire. They think that there must really be something awful about Obama and the Democratic Party to drive people so berserk.

On the upside, in the current atmosphere, no non-crazy can possibly win a Republican nomination. Hopefully, the Republican candidates will appear crazy to any non-crazy person left at election time. If the non-crazies are not in the majority, then we are in deep trouble.