In a scant three hours, President Obama will be on-line and on C-SPAN addressing the youth and young adults of America from a high school in Virginia. From the way some people are talking about this, you'd think he was going to propose the end of the truth, justice, and the American way.
First things first, judge for yourself. Read the text here. The speech is scheduled to begin at Noon Eastern time so if you can, watch it on the Internet from the link at the White House Web site or on the tube live or any of the dozens of times it will be rebroadcast.
Now for the commentary: What's funny about this is the reactions of the mobs. I don't even want to credit reactions to "people" or even "Americans" anymore. We are quickly becoming a nation of mobs and this "Sharks and Jets" mentality is seen best focusing between FoxNews and MSNBC. Frankly, they're just different ends of the same line and if we can't get beyond that, we will live on that line instead of in a marketplace of ideas and free expression.
AOL has some fun stats. Monday night, they reported that of people who responded to their online poll, 60% thought the President's plan to address the nation's students was inappropriate. Did these people respond the same way when President Bush did the same thing in 1991? From where I sit, the more important question is "Did I?"
Shame on me, I probably did. Hypocrisy stings when you realize it cuts both ways.
This morning, after the publication of the President's remarks, 56% think the controversy is much ado about nothing and 62% approve of the remarks. Less than 24 hours earlier, 60% thought the whole thing was inappropriate.
The AOL resources I used can be found at these URL's:
http://news.aol.com/article/obama-school-speech-controversy/655701
http://news.aol.com/article/obama-school-speech-text/658197
No comments:
Post a Comment