I asked whether her teacher talked about the speech after wards. Not a word, evidently.

However, today she said the teacher mentioned the speech during math class. I asked her what the teacher said. "Oh, I don't know. The President wants us to sit still and go to page 12 or something."

Her one observation that I thought was, if not off the mark, at least exhibiting some out of the box thinking: "Wait. If The President's mom home schooled him, why is he telling us to stay in school?" A bit of factual information lost in the mix, but I like that she appreciates irony.

I did my best to give him the talk when I got home — a variation on my talk about commercials. ("These people are trying to sell you high-fructose-corn-syrup-covered wheat husks with up to .o1% rat droppings, shaped like ninjas and marketed as cereal. They are trying to do it by making you think you need it/it will make you happy/you aren't cool unless you it eat/it will complete you. Why are they doing it? Are they telling the truth? Do they have your best interest in mind?") I gave a variation directed at politicians.

Evan seemed interested at first and then increasingly confused. It's possible I wandered from the point a bit. I was still full of Versed and Fentanyl. Also, I think I was delivering the talk face-down on the couch, which is not optimal for inspiring attentiveness.

As a progressive, it even made me feel a little stealthy, liking Ken's piece–but I did like it, because it seems to me that the image-making of politicians must always be rigorously analyzed and outted. George Orwell, in his curmudgeonly way, might have been writing the same thing about liberal can-do-no-wrong gods. I do wish that Orwell could have participated in the blogosphere; he would have been a natural.

Ken, I really enjoyed this piece. I think it's an issue worth commenting on and you did it beautifully.

My own kid's school isn't going to be doing anything with this; it's the first day of school here, and they've got all this education to get on with. She'll certainly sit through as much of the speech as she wants to — and I'm pretty sure she's been innoculated against worship of politicians at home. (Except, maybe, Harry S Truman, our greatest President. I'm pretty sure that she didn't learn any skepticism about Truman, our greatest President, from me.)

Most students would get a lot more value from the President making a personal visit, but imagine how much outrage that would result in.

I would agree that interaction with government is useful. However as pointed out the targeted age range is so wide, I don't think any kid is going to be made to feel important by this speach. My Kindergardener would get MUCH greater value if my town selectmen/fireman/policeman made a personal visit instead of a televised speach. Ten years from now she would would get some value from the president in a targetted speech for HS students. A K-12 approach leaves both bored.

"So yeah– disliking Obama’s speech on ideological grounds makes no sense. If your kid is in a state school, you’re just haggling over the price."

Best line in here, and it really gets to the heart of the matter on so many things, from dissension about this speech, to the same for health care. I cannot help but feel that the same level of wailing and gnashing of teeth has never been shown about a president speaking to the school-children, it is just this guy that is president that has so many up in arms. Of course, the right-wing ideologues are always up in arms about "left-wing" professors in education, too, so there ya go…..

Why not? I mean, Barack Obama's a pretty important guy.