Obama Himself Should Follow a Modified Version of His Own Lesson Plan

posted at 12:31 pm on September 5, 2009 by Howard Portnoy
[ Moonbats ]   

Marc Steyn has a particularly funny and insightful column at NRO on the now-scrubbed portion of the lesson plan accompanying Obama’s speech to schoolchildren next Tuesday. The deleted material contained a suggestion that teachers ask their students to write letters to themselves outlining what they could do to “help the President.” (Why stop there, I say? Why not just ask the little darlings go into daddy’s wallet or mommy’s purse and gather up all the crumpled green paper they find and send it to the president?)

Anyway, in his lead-up to this ham-handed, self-serving attempt at indoctrination, Steyn reminds the reader of an act of self-indoctrination Obama supporters imposed on themselves around the time of the inauguration. This took the form of a video pledge to Obama by Ashton Kutcher and assorted other celebrities. (For anyone lucky enough to have been spared this nauseating and wrong-headed show of obeisance, a blessedly abbreviated version of the video appears below.)

What is wrong with people prostrating themselves — or, worse, asking children to prostrate themselves — in this fashion is that we live in a constitutional republic, not a monarchy. We elect a president, not a ruler. It is his job is to serve us — not the other way around.

In asking schoolchildren to submit to the president, which the original lesson plan did, Obama betrays an ignorance of the job description of presidency and of the Constitution from which the president’s powers derive. (So much for his having been an instructor in constitutional law.) We, as a nation, already have a Pledge of Allegiance. And it is not to Barack Obama (or any other leader, for that matter) but to the nation.

Maybe in preparing for his speech to the nation’s schoolchildren, Obama is the one who should have to write a letter to himself telling what he can do to help the country.

In case he gets stuck, here are some suggestions:

• Explain what you can really do to help the ailing economy. And, please, don’t regurgitate the same garbage you’ve been forcing down the electorate’s throat since you first took office. Don’t say you’re going save the economy by remaking our system of health care, because your efforts so far have done nothing to help us recover from the recession we’re in. In fact, unemployment is at a 26-year high of 9.7%, even though you promised it would never rise above 8.5% if we listened to you. So start focusing your efforts on genuinely getting us back on track. (Hint: Maybe you should rethink your claim that “doing nothing is not an option” and get out of the way while the natural healing process takes place.)
• Recognize the greatness of the nation you were lucky to be born into. Forget your wife’s mumbo-jumbo about the “bar having been repeatedly raised on you.” Both she and you were born at a time when Jim Crow — like other forms of discrimination — was a relic of an earlier time; if anything the bar was lowered for you and Michelle Robinson. (Serisouly, now, have you read the senior thesis she wrote at Princeton? If that is not affirmative action at work, then nothing is.) Tell the children when you speak what a wondrous nation they live in — that it is a beacon of freedom to people the world over, many of whom flock to our shores to enjoy the great privilege of being an American citizen. And, for God’s sake, stop apologizing for the country when you go abroad.
• Get out of the way of business and free enterprise. People succeed or fail not because of luck or circumstance but because of hard work and determination. That is true regardless of the color of their skin. Just ask Oprah Winfrey, Russel Simmons,or any of the people whose success is documented in the book America’s Black Self-Made Millionaires. In electing you, the majority of voters were not asking you to replace our current economic system with a redistributive socialist system. You are president of rich and poor alike. The Constitution does not endow you with the power or the right to show favoritism to any group over another. Stop attempting to usurp control of the industrial sector in this country, which been a key to America’s greatness. Own up to the fact that businesses run themselves better than government could ever run them.
• Be honest and forthright in your dealings with the American people. So far, you have not been. You vilify people who disagree with you and accuse them of lying when you know they are simply exercising their right of free speech. Admit that you were wrong about the stimulus and begin listening to others who may have better ideas on how to stimulate economic growth. Reach across the aisle, as you promised you would. Your Republican colleagues may be able to provide some much-needed fresh persepective. Stop inventing fictitious and meaningless statistics like “jobs saved.” Above all else, own your mistakes. Don’t shift the blame to your predecessor or to someone else.
  

These suggestions are just a start. I’m sure the president could come up with much more to write about if he set his mind to it.

Cross-posted at Zombie Contentions

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