9/3: Leave Them Kids Alone!

Conservative bloggers are furious that Pres. Obama will deliver a special address to public school students in which he will "speak directly to the nation's children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school." While the themes of Obama's speech appear fairly innocuous, righty bloggers are convinced that Obama will use the speech to indoctrinate children with leftist ideas. Michelle Malkin warns that Obama will use the speech (along with the accompanying preparatory materials) to promote "Bill Ayers' pedagogical philosophy," which she describes as "downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools." Meanwhile, several righty bloggers are urging parents to keep their children home from school on 9/8 so that they'll avoid watching Obama's speech. One RedState blogger sounds an ominous alarm:

"There is a puzzle being put together before us. The pieces just keep falling into place. Day of service. Compulsory volunteerism. Children being called to service for the good of the community. Can you see the picture it's making?"

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Sirota, Yglesias, Moulitsas) are delighted that ex-state Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D) is preparing to challenge Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) -- not because the netroots necessarily prefer Romanoff to Bennet, but because the threat of a primary challenge seems to be pushing Bennet to the left.
• Ezra Klein has written three separate posts explaining how Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) has considerable leverage over what the eventual health care bill will look like. Jane Hamsher is disgusted that Snowe wields so much power when Dems control both houses of Congress and the WH, and she blames WH CoS Rahm Emanuel for helping Snowe weaken the public option. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (icebergslim, Aravosis, Uygur, digby, Willis) are growing increasingly disenchanted with the Obama admin. now that it appears to be giving up on a public option.
• Liberal bloggers (Porter, Serwer, Yglesias) are blasting conservative MSNBC pundit Pat Buchanan for writing an op-ed defending Adolf Hitler's actions in the run-up to WWII. Several lefty bloggers (Roth, Moulitsas, Black, Dayen, Benen, DougJ) are complaining that there is nothing Buchanan could say that would cause MSNBC to fire him.

OBAMA: Indoctrinating Your Children?

Conservative bloggers are very upset that Obama will deliver a webcast speech on "the importance of education" to public school students:

• NRO's Jonah Goldberg: "I've received a lot of e-mail from concerned parents and teachers who say that they've contacted their local schools and asked about Obama's speech."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Had George W. Bush's Department of Education ever sought to broadcast a presidential speech to the nation's schoolchildren -- and suggested they follow up by writing a letter to themselves about how they could help them -- the left would have gone absolutely beserk. What's a bit unsettling is the common theme -- let's all help Barack Obama. Not help the country or preserve our freedom or secure our nation -- but help Barack Obama. In the end, it's all about him, isn't it?"
• Malkin: "Downplaying academic achievement in favor of left-wing radical activism in the public schools is rooted in old neighborhood pal and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers' pedagogical philosophy. It was the Chicago Annenberg Challenge way when the two served as board members of the educational foundation -- and it is the Washington Obama way now."
• The Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey: "It's one thing for a president to encourage kids to work hard and stay in school -- that's a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It's another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and presidency, and prod schools to drive social change."

Several righty bloggers are urging parents to keep their children home from school on 9/8 so that they'll avoid watching Obama's speech:

• RedState's Caleb Howe: "Keep 'em home. That should be the motto of every conservative with children in public school on the 8th of this month. That's the day the President will be invading every classroom that will have him with what is being billed as a general, innocuous 'stay in school, do your homework' message for public school students across the country. And if there's one thing we have all learned, it's that we can trust the Obama administration to say what they mean and mean what they say. Right? [...] There is a puzzle being put together before us. The pieces just keep falling into place. Day of service. Compulsory volunteerism. Children being called to service for the good of the community. Can you see the picture it's making?"
• Stephen Green: "Now my son is young enough that he won't be subjected to the President's smiling face, dulcet tones, and calls to action. He won't be pressured by his teachers or peers to go along or get with the program. Your kids might not be so lucky. In impossible times, the only way to be a responsible parent is to do the irresponsible thing. If my son were in a public school...I'd call him in sick next Tuesday. I'd keep him home. I suggest you do so. I urge you to do so. If pressed, be honest about your reasons -- but be reasonable about presenting them. Otherwise, don't offer an explanation. Make it a silent protest. And while your kids are home, think up some patriotic games to play. Rent the delightful (and true-in-spirit-if-not-in-fact) musical, 1776. Set off some fireworks. Make it a mini Fourth of July."

OBAMA II: The Latest Right-Wing Freakout?

Liberal bloggers are portraying the conservative complaints about Obama's speech as further evidence that the right has gone crazy:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "The Obama administration has an extremely banal plan to have the President deliver a September 8 address to K-6 schoolchildren about the importance of personal responsibility and education. Naturally, the right-wing is staging a massive freakout. [...] Probably the biggest moral of the story is that the contemporary conservative movement is run by crazy people with no scruples, who'll turn anything into a pretext to level wild accusations."
• Oliver Willis: "President Obama plans to give a speech to America's kids about staying in school and doing well. This seems perfectly innocous and normal activity for an American president. Don't tell the mainstream conservatives. According to them it's a brainwashing session to turn kids into communists. This isn't some tinfoil hatter on the fringes of society pushing this message. This is mainstream conservatism."
• tristero: "Now we know the rightwing's fall strategy. If Obama so much as breathes, Republicans plan on screaming bloody murder. [...] These people are seriously crazy. And seriously dangerous."

Interestingly, one conservative blogger (Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson) thinks this controversy is much ado about nothing:

"The right wing blogosphere is hyperventilating again, and again I just can't join the freak-out. This time it's over Barack Obama's plan to address the nation's schoolchildren, and indoctrinate them with evil communist principles like working hard, setting goals, and taking responsibility. Why, he's just like Karl Marx. Some are even urging parents to pull their children out of school that day, so they won't be exposed to this horror. [...] Get a freaking grip. Time after time, the right wing gets the vapors over their fantasies about what Obama is going to say in his next big speech. And time after time, they're proven wrong and embarrassed as Obama takes it straight down the middle and says nothing extreme. You'd think they would learn not to keep crying wolf."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Strange Resurgence Of The Bush-Free GOP

NRO's Jim Geraghty:

"Gallup finds that since January, a 17-percentage-point advantage for Democrats in party affiliation or leanings has narrowed to a 5-percentage-point margin. Many pollsters are finding the Republicans leading the generic congressional ballot. President Obama's approval rating has sunk from the 70s to the low 50s. In New Jersey and Virginia, polls that show the Democrat ahead are few and far between. By almost every measuring stick, Democrats and President Obama began the year on top of the world, and have steadily lost that public confidence and trust over the past eight months.

What happened? Well, the utopia of hope and change did not take hold immediately, and hopes for a moderate course have been dashed. But also worth noting is how dramatically the political landscape has changed since George W. Bush rode off into the sunset. Perhaps while he was front and center, and the dominant voice of the GOP, many Americans tired of Iraq, tired of his Texas twang, tired of everything they had seen and heard for the past eight years; they would hear nothing else from the GOP, and could overlook a multitude of flaws in the Democratic-party option.

The world looks different without that familiar -- and at times deserving -- scapegoat."

LEST WE FORGET: Carpe Diem

ESPN's Bill Simmons examines whether the protagonists in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" could have possibly packed so many activities into a single day:

"Realistically, Ferris and Cameron didn't pick up Sloane until somewhere between 9:30 and 10:15. They lived at least 25-30 minutes from downtown Chicago and returned home at about 6. We know this because Sloane looked at her watch right near the end. So that means in the span of slightly less than eight hours ...

They drove to Chicago; dropped off the car; visited the top of the Sears Tower as well the Stock Market; went to the Museum of Art long enough for Cameron to have a life epiphany; cabbed it over to the French restaurant; ate lunch at Abe Froman's table; headed over to Wrigley Field; attended an afternoon Cubs game long enough for the pizza guy to tell Ed Rooney that it was the third inning (and for Ferris to catch a foul ball); headed back to downtown Chicago; took part in a parade in which Ferris sang 'Danke Schoen' on a giant float without having rehearsed it; picked up the car; drove home; hung out at Cameron's pool; spent at least 20-25 minutes trying to take the miles off Cameron's car and watched Cameron subsequently destroy his father's car and then tell them he'd take the heat for it (which always bothered me because no father would forgive something that creepy, and besides, unless his father was molesting him, how bad could he have been that you'd destroy a beautiful piece of machinery like that?); left Cameron's house so Ferris could walk Sloane home; then Ferris sprinted back to his house to make it in time for dinner.

Seems improbable, right? No way all of that stuff happens in less than 10 hours unless they basically made a two-inning cameo at the Cubs game and left. (Conceivable, by the way. How can you top catching a foul ball? And if Sloane hated baseball and pushed for them to leave after 2-3 innings, wouldn't the logical next stop for them -- if a girl who hated sports was running the show -- be that art museum?) But there's no way to know, which leads me to the following idea: Shouldn't three Chicago kids re-enact Ferris' entire day and see if they could pull it off in less than eight hours? Bring a couple of Flip cameras, tape everything, see if you can do it and stick the results on YouTube. John Hughes would be proud."