Topic: The ConWeb
The latest to board the crazy train that is the right-wing freak-out over President Obama's upcoming speech to students:
A Sept. 4 Accuracy in Media column by Rita Kramer invokes the "Hitler Jugend," adding: "It's ridiculous to imagine Obama Youth, isn't it? Here? Once, in the beginning, it seemed ridiculous there too." Too bad for Kramer that Obama's not doing that.
Jeff Poor began his Sept. 3 MRC Culture & Media Institute column by invoking Obama's purported narcisissm: "His weekly address on health care Aug. 22 mentioned the word “I” eight times ... The week before when he talked about health care, he said “I” 12 times." Poor goes on to baselessly denounce Obama's speech as "indoctrination" and that it "should serve as a larger reminder that this kind of manipulation of young people occurs every day in America at the hands of the NEA." Poor adds: "Conservatives of all stripes – social conservatives, libertarians, Christian conservatives and more – all need to unify to stop government from manipulating our young people." If any manipulating is to be done, Poor seems to be saying, it's conservatives who should be doing it.
Meanwhile, Bob Unruh hides a partisan agenda in a Sept. 5 article highlighting the claims of the right-wing Liberty counsel and its founder, Mathew Staver, that Obama's speech is illegal. Unruh describes Staver as "A lawyer whose work has included myriad civil rights disputes and who has practice before the U.S. Supreme Court ," refusing to accurately identify Staver's right-wing, anti-Obama agenda.
Kramer, Poor and Unruh all fail to mention that both Presidents Bush gave speeches to students or issued teaching materials, as did Ronald Reagan.
