The President's Education Speech

So today was the back to school address.

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I read it yesterday and am a fan. Even GOP leaders like it (Newt Gingrich approves, the Florida GOP chair who last week denounced the speech as an opportunity for the President to advance Socialism said he would show it to his kids...). Yet controversy surrounds the speech.

Going in folks were worried about accompanying lesson plans and political messages. Those concerns were dealt with.

Going out, more conservative outlets mention that in 1991 Democrats ordered the GAO to investigate Bush 41's education speech for ethics violations. I was disappointed to find no accompanying text or video, but digging through C-SPAN I discovered it.



Letting slide the video quality and awkward presentation/speaking style, the speech was extremely similar to Obama's. No policy initiatives were pushed and no political agenda was forwarded. The school Bush 41 praised was even a public school. So my question is why were Democrats so up in arms?

My Congressman, Jim Himes (probably better known as the guy who ousted Republicans from New England rather than on his personal merits) wrote an article in our local paper about the speech and decision by some schools not to show it. He writes

Let's set aside what seems to be a complete absence of respect for the office of the President...

But I'd rather not set that aside. There is some grandeur associated with the office, some implicit respect people should have for the institution if not for the man. Like we said yesterday, the President is unique partly because he is head of State and head of Government. Obviously using one to buttress the other is possible, and giving such a broadly acclaimed and non-partisan speech leading into tomorrow's Health Care speech and the subsequent polling seems cagey. Still, a nation's leader is the face of the nation. There's something grand there.

Moving forward, I wonder how much the President's numbers tic upwards and if giving this speech before the Health Care speech might be problematic - if approval numbers rise, some could argue it was due to the former rather than the latter. One could just look at the Health Care questions, but polling on that issue is so tricky and variable on wording that it doesn't show much.

At the end of the night I'm reading Washington's First Inaugural. Given the events of the day, this part struck me:

I behold the surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments, no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world.

And while politics and partisanship will play out during the legislative session, at least in these education speeches I see Washington's Executive vision.