That’s right. Student loans and health care. They go together like chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of Pine-Sol. The changes state that “savings” from removing the Federal Family Education Loan Program will go to increase the per student Federal Pell Grant. (You do know that a community college student with a Pell Grant can walk away with a refund check that’s derived solely from Pell Grant proceeds, right? Just a little something for you to mull over, as if this health care debacle isn’t bad enough.)

Those “savings” from eliminating FFELP will also off-set health care costs, too. Yeah, um, okay. (By the way, the elimination of the FFEL Program means choice in student lending is over and the only option students will have is the Department of Education. In case you aren’t aware, the US Department of Education has been telling schools for a year they need to begin setting up their processes to handle this switch as it was inevitable with Obama as President.)

Back to the Slaughter Rule. If the House votes for those proposed changes, then they will “deem” the Senate bill as having been passed, although no votes were actually cast for or against the Senate bill.

Then, the Senate bill that the Senate passed and the House “deemed to have passed” is sent to the President to sign, the “Cornhusker Kickback” and “Louisiana Purchase” included.

The Slaughter Rule seems underhanded, doesn’t it? That’s BECAUSE IT IS.

What about the “fix” that includes the elimination of FFELP? That reconciliation bill will be sent to the Senate for their vote. Since it’s a reconciliation bill, the Senate only needs 51 votes to pass it. The original Senate bill didn’t have pro-life language in it so it’s not a given the Senate will pass the reconciliation bill. If they make any changes to the reconciliation bill, it has to go back to the House. The question is, will pro-life Democrats in the House, like Bart Stupak of Michigan, trust the Senate to pass the changes? Are there more procedural tricks up Nancy Pelosi’s sleeve to somehow assuage Stupak’s concern, maintain the large pro-abortion coalition in the House and get the bill passed? (By passed I mean, deemed-and-by-default-passed.) [UPDATE: According to HotAir, there is a possible hand to play between Pelosi and Stupak to do just that. Will it ever end??]

So much for Scott Brown being central to defeating health care, right? Wrong. The election of Scott Brown has brought to light all the dirty tactics the left is willing to use, like the Slaughter Rule, to cram government-controlled health care down the throats of the American people.

Perhaps Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA) is a little nervous that his home state elected a Republican. Although he voted for the initial House version of the bill, he is saying he will vote against the Senate version. Ah, but what about the Slaughter Rule? He was quoted in a Boston Globe article saying the Slaughter Rule “may be unconstitutional” and using it would damage their credibility.

Lynch also criticized the procedure Democrats are considering using to pass the legislation – by “deeming” the Senate bill approved, instead of voting directly on the Senate bill itself. Repeating a comment reported by the Boston Herald today, he called the procedure “disingenuous.” Echoing Republican complaints, he also said it “may be unconstitutional” because it wouldn’t involve an up-or-down vote on legislation.

“It’s a stretch,” he said. “I think it hurts our credibility to try to pull a prank like that. We should stand up and tell voters where we stand.”

Nonetheless, Lynch predicted it would pass.

“I think the president and speaker Pelosi are fairly persuasive,” he said. “They wouldn’t call on a vote unless they had the votes.”

He predicted it would pass? Well, what do you know? Stephen Lynch voted FOR the Slaughter Rule the same day the article appeared! Imagine that.

Are you still confused over the Slaughter Rule? Here’s all you need to know: In voting to use the Slaughter Rule to bypass actually voting for the health care bill, the House has slaughtered the oath they each took to uphold and defend the Constitution. As Article 1, Section 7 states, “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States.” A bill that has not passed the House but has been “deemed” as passed through a procedural Slaughter Rule and is signed into law by the President will find itself headed to court.

Are you still confused? I don’t blame you. This 90 second video pieced together by the NRCC (National Republican Congressional Committee) will quickly explain, not how a bill becomes a law, but how a bill gets “demon passed” in a House run by Nancy Pelosi.

For those of you wondering, “demonpass” may not have entered the nation’s vernacular so readily were it not for a Carly Fiorina campaign ad, known as the “demon sheep” ad. If you haven’t seen it yet, or need a dose of laughter after all this Slaughterhouse activity, here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Obama doesn’t have time to talk to General McKiernan in Afghanistan (his own appointee) regarding his request for more troops, economic and political aid but he can drop everything to fly 4000 miles to participate in a 45 minute presentation. (Watch Obama’s presentation on HotAir here.)

Did Obama really think he could trump the last 9 months of his “Apologizing for America World Tour” by making a 45 minute appeal to grant an Olympics bid to a city that’s so “great” it’s called Second City? Even in his attempt, he couldn’t keep himself from telling the IOC that America basically needed the Olympics to restore its good name. In response to a question, he actually said:

“Over the last several years sometimes that fundamental truth about the United States has been lost. One of the legacies of this Olympic Games would be the restoration of that understanding of what the United States is all about and a recognition of how we are linked to the world.”

In short, help us get our groove back, IOC!

In this particular scenario, Michelle Obama is the worse of the two offenders. You’ve seen the audacious quote from her speech to the Chicago 2016 bid team (bold italics, mine):

“As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.”

Michelle Obama says participating in this presentation is a “sacrifice” but doesn’t exactly explain what’s so sacrificial about packing designer clothes, flying on a private jumbo jet or getting away for a few days with Oprah Winfrey on the taxpayer’s dime. I would call that an extraordinary get-away unlike any I’d ever experienced! “Sacrificial” wouldn’t even make the list of 1,000,000 adjectives!

Michelle Obama wouldn’t know “sacrifice” if it looked her in the face, wearing fatigues, waving an American flag, surrounded by little boys and girls going without their Mommy and Daddy while they fight in an ongoing war in two countries.

If she thinks this trip is a sacrifice then she is out of touch with the American people. So much, in fact, it’s almost painful. Is she ignorant of the climbing unemployment rate? Is she callous to the situation of our military families? Does she know the sacrifices made every day by everyday Americans to put food on the table, to send their kids to school, to make ends meet while she and her husband spend, spend, spend? She should just get it over with and say to the deployed military personnel, military families, unemployed Americans and the fiscally strained, “Let them eat cake.”

HotAir grabbed CNN’s shock and dismay as the IOC makes the announcement. As the anchor grasps for words, I find myself hoping the jaw-dropping is repeated in newsrooms around American in 2010 when the out-of-touch Democrats get booted from Washington.

As @Doc_O said on Twitter, “Cheer up, Axelrod! Obama failed to bring the Olympics to Chicago in 2016, but he’ll bring the Republicans to Washington in 2010.” I sure hope so, as long as they’re conservative Republicans and not RINOs in the form of McCain, Graham or Snowe.

What can we learn from this?

Obama will spend, spend, spend. Michelle will go on lavish overseas trips and spend, spend, spend. The taxpayers will continue to pay for the spending sprees. What we’ll receive in return: Zero. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Wait, that’s not exactly right. We’ll “get” something all right: a huge deficit unlike any we’ve ever seen coupled with skyrocketing inflation. Yes, Bush ran up the deficit in 8 years. It only took Obama 8 months to triple it.

As Obama flies back to America I hope he’s thinking about his next two losses: government-run health care and the hoax of cap-and-tax.

In the meantime, someone hand Valerie Jarrett a Kleenex.

You see, Jimmy Carter isn’t making headlines anymore by showing up for photo ops with the most recent Habitat for Humanity house. (Before you get all up in arms, please know I worked with Habitat for Humanity while in college. He should stick to that.)

Jimmy Carter hasn’t penned a new book on Israel ‘Apartheid’. (The New York Times didn’t give it a rave review but Osama Bin Laden seemed to endorse it. Ed Morrissey has a great follow-up question at HotAir.)

Jimmy Carter isn’t sharing a Presidential photo-op in the Oval Office and probably won’t for the next several years and this might be his way of begging for an invite.

No, Jimmy Carter, who makes us remember words like malaise, craves relevancy. I imagine many former Presidents, who never enjoyed a life outside politics, clamor for ways to enjoy the limelight of mindless followers. Maybe the desperation to be heard becomes unbearable when everyone recognizes you’re a windbag and doesn’t seek your advice or counsel like they used to.

Just like Obama’s health care speech to the joint sessions of Congress on Wednesday, Carter’s “malaise speech” of 1979 resulted in a temporary bump in the ratings. However, the ratings didn’t stick. As PBS accounts:

Perhaps appreciating the president’s astonishing frankness, the public rewarded him with higher approval ratings in the days that followed. But then, as historian Douglas Brinkley notes, “it boomeranged on him. The op-ed pieces started spinning out, ‘Why don’t you fix something? There’s nothing wrong with the American people. We’re a great people. Maybe the problem’s in the White House, maybe we need new leadership to guide us.’”

President Obama has just experienced his first boomerang reaction on one of his largest agenda items: government health care. According to Scott Rasmussen, prior to his speech Wednesday night, Obama’s health care plan had an approval rating of 44%. After the speech, it climbed to its highest peak of 51%. Then … boomerang … it’s down to 42%.

In order to combat these ratings, the House voted to censure Joe Wilson for blurting out, “You Lie!” during Obama’s speech Wednesday when he was caught, er, lying. (See my earlier post “A South Carolinian’s Response to Joe Wilson” for more on the subject.)

Just in case that ridiculous side show wasn’t enough to convince Americans that those in opposition to the current health care proposals have such little decorum when speaking up about their desire to (gasp!) live longer (if only we’d go silently), Jimmy Carter decides he’d like to enter the ring with the most incendiary remarks:
1) He says those opposed to Obama’s health care plan are racist.
2) He says people from the South are racist.
3) He says people all around the country are racist.
4) In short, everyone who disagrees with President Obama is racist.

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American,” Carter told “NBC Nightly News.” “I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way, and I’ve seen the rest of the country that shares the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans.”

“That racism inclination still exists, and I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people — not just in the South but around the country — that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” Carter said.

Michael Steele, who is the first African-American to chair the Republican National Committee, denied Wednesday that race is fueling protests. “President Carter is flat-out wrong,” Steele said in a statement. “This isn’t about race. It is about policy.”

Jimmy Carter has just called our nation racist.

You dissent? You’re a racist!
You want to live longer by receiving medical treatment even after the age of 65? You’re a racist!
You’re concerned that after George W. Bush increased the deficit in 8 years that Obama has tripled it in a mere 8 months? You’re a racist!
You want your health care to be determined by your doctor? You’re a racist!
You gathered with fellow citizens in local towns throughout the country and in DC to express your outrage over DC corruption and massive spending? You’re a racist!

You think all life is precious, you’d defend anyone’s right to life or liberty, you vote for politicians not because of their skin color but because of their principles, you show no preference for one ethnicity over another … but if you oppose government health care, you’re a racist? Yeah, that’s certainly logical. Umm, no.

No, Jimmy. No, Obama. Americans are not racist because they disagree with you on policy. In fact, we see through racist claims for what they are – a final grasp to claim victory of an argument you are not winning. It’s like a 2nd grader who is thrown out at 2nd base during a casual game of kickball. He knows he’s lost the argument so he says, “You’re stupid!” He’s still out. But now he’s shown more of his character: a 2nd grade, prepubescent, immature, unsportsmanlike, temper-tantrum inability to play by the rules and suffer the consequences of not running fast enough.

I perked up watching Charles Krauthammer’s take on the racism charges last night on Special Report with Bret Baier. National Review has the transcript. Here it is in part, and as usual, I nod my head in total agreement.

You know, the accusation of racism is a sign of desperation by people who know they are losing the national debate, and they want to hurl the ultimate charge in American politics.

This is dealing from the bottom of the deck, and I agree that it is a disgusting tactic. It’s done as a way to end debate. The minute you call somebody a racist, the debate is over. You don’t continue.

Accusations of racism are the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel.

(As for Maureen Dowd, imagining a word [“boy”] that wasn’t said): Well, in my previous profession, I saw a lot of people who heard words that weren’t said. They were called patients. Many of them were actually helped with medication.

The reason she won’t be — and others who are hurling the [racism] accusation — is because it is a deliberate attempt to change the subject and discredit the opposition with an unprovable — and unproven — ad hominem.

That, dear Jimmy, and for that matter, Maureen Dowd, is why no one is listening to you. They might hear you, but they aren’t listening. There is a difference.

UPDATE: According to Jake Tapper of ABC News, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says President Obama does not agree with Jimmy Carter that opposition is rooted in racism. Obama could put these ridiculous racism charges to rest by giving a speech on how ridiculous it is. You have to wonder why he isn’t. It’s not as if he has an aversion to TV cameras.

Despite the fact that bills have been written, amendments have been voted on and alternative bills have been penned by Republicans (though not acknowledged they exist by Democrats), Obama now says he wants to have this speech so he can talk about what he wants in a plan. That’s a little late, is it not? Could it possibly be an effort to increase his ratings or those of the health care proposals?

Here we have a President who is a day late and a dollar short (well, at least a trillion dollars short). He has been talking for weeks about “his health care plan” but the truth of the matter is, he doesn’t have a health care plan. Three House committees have a plan. The Senate is working on a plan behind closed doors. There is talk about a trigger that sets government-run health care in motion but Barack Obama does not have a health care plan. That’s why he wasn’t referring to one in his speech. Notice that?

Nothing Obama says has found its way to a written bill.

• He is lying when he says people who like their current health care plan can keep it.
• He is lying when he says he will not sign it if it adds one dime to our national deficit. (How quickly he forgets the CBO.)
• He is lying when he says the uninsured total 47 million. Oh, wait. Tonight, he changed that to 30 million. It’s a step in the right direction but he’s still over by about 16 million.
• He is lying when he said Medicare will not be cut.

You don’t want to take my word for it? Even the Obama-drooling Associated Press covered Obama’s non-truths by calling them oversimplifications and omissions. For a list of Obama’s words versus the facts, check out Gateway Pundit’s page. (I send you there because the AP might doctor their post later.)

Sarah Palin has already weighed in on her Facebook Page:

Our objections to the Democrats’ health care proposals are not mere “bickering” or “games.” They are not an attempt to “score short term political points.” And it’s hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use “scare tactics” when in the next breath he says that “more will die” if his proposals do not pass.

In his speech the President directly responded to concerns I’ve raised about unelected bureaucrats being given power to make decisions affecting life or death health care matters. He called these concerns “bogus,” “irresponsible,” and “a lie” — so much for civility. After all the name-calling, though, what he did not do is respond to the arguments we’ve made, arguments even some of his own supporters have agreed have merit.

I know he’s lying. The AP knows he’s lying. Joe Wilson knows he’s lying. Joe Wilson (R-SC) called Obama out on it. Here is Joe in his own words, err, word.

Some have said Representative Joe Wilson betrayed the decorum that the congressional chamber requires. You could say the same of Obama who said he was coming after those who distorted “the plan” although as President, he does have the floor. You could say Nancy Pelosi betrayed the decorum of her position as Speaker of the House by saying those attending town halls were wearing swastikas (they weren’t). You could say Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer (House Majority Leader) betrayed the decorum of their positions by calling government-run health care protesters un-American. You could say this Administration betrays the decorum of its role when asking the American people to forward emails and conversations that seem “fishy” to flag@whitehouse.gov.

I watched the video again. There were resounding boos coming from the Republicans and I thought there would be more boos. Perhaps Joe Wilson thought there would be, too, placing his “Lie!” in harmony with the booing. Was it the right time and place? Probably not. At this point in Obama’s takeover Presidency, do I care? Absolutely not.

You tell me. Do you prefer the guy who tells it the way he wants you to see it or the guy who tells it the way it is? You may not like his approach, but I refuse to tell the man to apologize. Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Carol Fowler (yes, the ridiculous Carol Fowler) can all take a hike. I’m originally from South Carolina. We like to spar but more than that, when we see an injustice, we speak out and intervene. I’ll never forget my first week working in Massachusetts. A man in line at Dunkin’ Donuts asked his son what kind of doughnut he wanted. The son replied, “Ummm” at which point the man turned to his son and reamed him out in front of everyone, including the son’s friend, because the young boy needed more than 1 second to choose a doughnut. This man was yelling and out of control. How can the boy make a decision with a dad that is embarrassingly raking him over the coals? I stepped in and asked the man to lower his voice. He turned to me and said, “It’s none of your business.” I responded in my Dixie Carter/Julia Sugarbaker pronounce-the-fool-out-of-words-when-angry accent, “Sir, the volume of your voice has made it everyone’s business. I suggest you treat your son with a little more dignity. You are in in a public venue.” People started clapping. I was proud. Then I wondered what in the world I had done and if I was going to arrive at work unscathed. Yes, we South Carolinians may stick our foot in our mouth every once in awhile but I’d rather do that than sit idly by with all the decorum in the world while our health care system is turned to mush. Not on my watch. No way, no how, no sir.

Ace of Spades covers it like this:

Personally, I think it was a bad idea but quite frankly I was taken aback by how many outright lies Obama was spewing tonight. Combine that with the number of insulting partisan attacks (even for him), I can’t blame Wilson too much for not being able to take it any more.

I’d suggest anyone terribly offended by Wilson’s spontaneous outburst take a second and consider how despicable it is for Obama to continue to attack the previous administration and distort its record. Is that appropriate behavior for a President speaking to a joint session of Congress?

You want respect? Try giving it occasionally.

Consider this from Obama’s speech.

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

So Obama calls Palin a liar (not by name but everyone knows who he’s talking about) but we are supposed to get our panties in a bunch because Wilson yelled it out? At least Wilson had the guts to do it to in the same room.

Joe Wilson told more truths in his one word than Obama did in all of his. That makes him a real truther. (Insider’s Note: Whenever referring to whack jobs who think 9/11 is an inside job, I use quotations around the word “truther” because it’s too much of an oxymoron to take seriously.)

Hot Air has the update that reminds me that when a member of the GOP finds his or her spine, it doesn’t last for long. Joe Wilson has since apologized.

“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.”

I know the Congressional thing to do was to apologize. The South Carolinian thing to do would be to say, “You’re daggum right I spoke up. We were all booing him and I thought there would be continued boos to drown me out but there weren’t. I know it came across as disrespectful to some but saying illegal immigrants aren’t covered when they are in the bills that are written is disrespectful to every American. Once President Obama apologies for lying to the American people, I’ll apologize for calling him out on it during the Speech.” Now that is a non-apology apology I could gladly endorse.

UPDATE: Joe Wilson, a former immigration attorney, makes it clear that he is for LEGAL immigration and would like to take Obama up on a civil discourse on not including ILLEGAL immigrants in the health care bill. We’ll won’t hold our breath on that conversation occurring. Here’s the full clip, but I stopped it after they asked him who he liked in the Clemson-Georgia Tech Game tonight. He didn’t answer so I’ll field it. Clemson, of course.

UPDATE II: It is very satisfying to know that I’m on the same wavelength as Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh.

(If you’re new to the topic of Van Jones,  you can watch TV commentator Glenn Beck play Van Jones in his own words here, here and here or you can read about him here, here and here. Regular viewer of NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN? Subscriber to the NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe? Then you probably haven’t heard about Van Jones. A story within the story is the lack of media coverage.)

Van Jones is now among a list of people who Obama had close to him but then threw under his bus. It’s getting fairly crowded under there. First, he called his own Grandmother “a typical white woman” in his big speech on race.  Her non-working husband wouldn’t drive her to work even though she was being harassed on the bus. Apparently, this request made her a racist. Now, maybe she was, but that story of Obama’s isn’t enough to paint her as one.  What’s worse is he used the statement against his Grandmother to paint a wide brush stroke of all white people. Some healer of racial divide Obama is. Thumpety-thump.

Then there’s the convicted real estate felon Tony Rezko whose wife bought a plot of land next to the Obama’s Chicago residence and 6 months later sold them a portion of it. It was widely known at the time that Rezko was being federally investigated but that didn’t stop the Obamas. When Rezko was found guilty of 16 charges of corruption, Obama famously explained, “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew.” I don’t know about you but it’s interesting how Obama called the timing of his real estate deal “bone-headed” but not the deal itself. Imagine that: Obama comes out of a shady dealing in Chicago unscathed. Thumpety-thump.

Next up, Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s big race speech was fueled by his need to defend his association with a preacher of hate. In his speech, he said he could no more disown him than the black community. Mere weeks later, as damaging video began to make its rounds (no, not undercover video but video sold right out of Wright’s church), Obama said Jeremiah Wright was like an old uncle who says crazy things sometimes. Thumpety-thump.

Van Jones had to know that if he became a political liability to Obama, the wheels on Obama’s bus were going to go thumpety-thump over him as well. If Valerie Jarrett receives the appropriate heat from having recruited Van Jones, Obama will dump her, too. Keep in mind, the only person Obama is loyal to is Obama.

Obama doesn’t have any governing experience and it shows with his need to have so many high-level advisors beyond the traditional Cabinet posts. Van Jones is just one czar. There are many others. See the list here. Their radical thinking will continue to be exposed. For instance, if your name is John Holdren or Cass Sunstein, I want you to go the way of Van Jones: resigning in the middle of the night as the wheels on Obama’s bus go thumpety-thump.

One last note for Van Jones: DLTDHYOTWO.

Here is a sample of the instructions for K-6:

As students listen to the speech, teachers could ask students to think about the following:

• What is the president trying to tell me?
• What is the president asking me to do?
• What new ideas and actions is the president challenging me to think about?

Teachers are then encouraged to “extend the learning” by having students:

• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at a later date (just like Obama and your parent’s money – okay, I added that).

Here is a sample of the instructions for Grades 7-12:

Before the speech, teachers could ask students to think about the following:

• How will he inspire us? (That’s rather presumptuous, no?)
• Do you remember any other historic moment when the president spoke to the nation? (GWB and a megaphone, anyone?)
• What impact did it have?

After the speech, teachers are encouraged to hold a guided discussion that includes:

• Is President Obama inspiring you to do anything? (First they wondered HOW he’d be inspiring. Now they wonder if he WAS inspiring. They must have received a copy of the speech in between these questions.)
• What do you believe are the challenges of your generation? (Besides the debt you owe due to the Spender-in-Chief’s policies?)
• How can you be a part of addressing these challenges? (Pay your taxes. Or don’t and become Treasury Secretary.)

The DOE must have received a lot of flack because they’ve made an update to the instructions for K-6. Instead of writing letters to themselves as to how they can help the President, now they’re asked to write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. Hmm, the focus went from him to them.

Jim Geraghty, of National Review, captured both versions here.  When I read the original one, the idea of writing a letter to yourself explaining how you can help the President struck me as rather odd. First of all, a letter to one’s self is called a diary entry. Tell that to a 5th grade football player. He’ll be all over that assignment. Second, why is a federal agency suggesting teachers encourage young people who can’t vote for him (yet) to think about how they can help the President? They didn’t say “help the country” or “help your classmate” but “help the President.” Help the President. Doesn’t he have enough advisors for that?

What kind of responses are they hoping to receive?

If given such an assignment, this is what my kid would write:

• “The President inspires me to know the history of socialism in order to recognize it when it rears its ugly head.”
• “The President inspires me to submit a term paper and then emphatically deny its contents during my presentation on it.”
• “The President inspires me to take lunch money from my friend and give it to my classmates.” (Especially if my friend’s name is Joe and his dad’s a plumber.)
• “The President inspires me to throw grandma under the bus whenever convenient. My pastor, too. And my real estate friend. Oh, and don’t forget Cambridge police officers.”
• “The President inspires me to have a beer with people to resolve my differences, or at least use it for a photo op.”
• “The President inspires me to find ways to work ‘wee weed up’ into as many conversations as possible.”
  
• “The President inspires me to not give up on identifying the 57 United States, even though I’ve only found 50 so far.”

Here is how my kid’s classmates would respond:

• “The President inspires me to say, ‘Let me be clear’ or ‘Make no mistake’ before I tell a lie.”
  
• “The President inspires me to take other people’s money.” – School Bully
• “The President inspires me to register to vote so that I can vote for the other person.” – High School Senior

You might think it’s a little over the top to be criticizing the President’s speech to the nation’s public school children before the speech is given. What kind of harm can it do? I’m not concerned about President Obama telling our nation’s kids to study and work hard. If a boy or girl needs that extra inspiration from the President to be a good student, then they’ll get that boost. (According to the DOE, they’ll get more homework, too.) I’m not concerned about tender minds becoming democrats. I’m concerned about them becoming loyalists, or Obamabots. Obamabots are the worst. They never question anything. Ever. Don’t kid yourself. It’s not just a speech. There are “before” activities and “after” activities which lead to a Day of Obama.

As I said on Twitter, JFK’s words have been restructured yet again: Ask not what Obama can do “for the children” but what the children can do for Obama.

Besides the teachers (like the one in this video) who go above and beyond to “extend the learning” for those young, malleable minds, I’m curious as to who wouldn’t have a problem with this type of assignment? Probably the parents of these kids:

UPDATE: Students are asked to do a little homework prior to the big speech and read about Barack Obama. The two books, including excerpts, available here.