Sound too over the top?
I don't think so.
Here's why.
Let's start with the implication that he "grew up on the mean streets." No he didn't. He grew up in a middle to upper middle class home, attended the best schools, and went on to several colleges. So right off the bat he's lying or the teleprompter is lying - take your pick.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had.
He was raised by his white grandmother while his mother was off pursuing other interests, including a stint in Seattle at some school or another. How did she pay for that?
How about how hard Michelle Obama worked to get to where she is?
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Michelle Obama grew up in what could only be considered a lovely brick middle class home, which could be even considered a tad nicer than the home I grew up in. Did her Dad work hard? Sure, as most of the Dads of that era did, including my own.
This is the woman who made a stump speech for her husband declaring "for the first time I'm proud of my country." Does the president think the kids of this country are too stupid to Google and find this information?
Both of them attended college as direct recipients of affirmative action. Barry didn't leave school with a boat load of student loans. Michelle Obama's "hard work" landed her a "play for pay job" at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she devised a way for the hospital, in direct opposition to the law, to dump patients. The patients, predominately her fellow black people, were bussed to surrounding hospitals with clothes pins on their pumping arteries to keep them from bleeding out before they received real care.
After lying about who he is, we come to the part that made me erupt. Thankfully there was no coffee in my mouth or my monitor would be drowning.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
Instead of saying we are privileged to live in a country founded on freedom, one which is the richest nation on this earth, the children are exhorted to make our country "more fair and more free." That, my friends, is an outrageous thing to say. This is once again implying that we need to be more free, all the while doing everything in his power to take away our freedoms - freedoms, I might add, which are guaranteed by our Constitution.
And fair? His poster child for fairness is Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled against white and Hispanic firemen because it wasn't "fair" that a black man or woman didn't pass the test allowing for advancement. Black man doesn't advance, well, by God, no one will advance. Now that's really fair!
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
God forbid you should "quit on your country."
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
There's that "country" thing again!
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn.
If that's true, then remind me again why you're dumping the voucher program in DC, a program which allows hundreds of poor, mostly black students, to escape lousy rat-infested schools? Is that how you practice the fairness you're so fond of, while your own daughters attend Sidwell Friends School to the tune of $40,000.00 per year?
How can we as a nation hold this man up as a role model for our children. A man who has never held a job or run a business, and who failed to even show up for votes when he was Senator. The only time he did show up it was to vote for bad laws. We've never even been allowed to see his academic records. If he's so smart, prove it!
Am I being over critical? Obviously I don't think so, or I wouldn't have published this. And how about the rest of the speech? It's nothing more than sophomoric pablum aimed at the most street wise "children" of any generation. Until last year, I taught 7th through 12th grade religious education at my church, so I know of what I speak. The kids of today will either be playing games on their i-phones or laughing out loud at this load of carp from the president.
