Homework

Well, today President Obama gave his much feared and anticipated address to schoolchildren (source: The NY Times). And so far, the kids haven’t risen up to seize control from their parents and force them into reeducation camps. I guess Obama’s plan didn’t work. A lot of Republicans claim that this was an attempt to indoctrinate their kids. And most of the others probably don’t know what “indoctrinate” means. For their part, the kids who saw the speech live at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, were thrilled. One student said “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet that the president of the United States came has come here and spoken to us.’’ Don’t feel bad. For a lot of your parents, it hasn’t sunk in yet that Barack Obama is actually President of the United States. The White House chose Wakefield in part because its student body is ethnically and economically diverse. And incidentally, that automatically means there weren’t a lot of Republican parents to worry about.

Now that the President is done with his school speech, he still has plenty of homework. Tomorrow is his big healthcare speech to a joint session of Congress. Obama spent Labor Day rehearsing for the big speech with an address to the AFL-CIO in Cincinnati (source: Huffington Post). The President said “At some point, it’s time to act.” Good. All we’ve seen for the past month is people acting out.

Speaking of which, today Congress is back in session (source: Washington Post). Members of Congress are supposed to spend their recess listening to their constituents’ concerns. This recess they spent their time listening to people who weren’t their constituents screaming. Members of Congress have spent almost 40 days listening to lunatics yelling in the town halls. The good news is that after a Democratic Congressman spends their recess listening to nut cases ranting about things they don’t understand, at least they’ll be well prepared to listen to Congressional nut cases like Eric Cantor. Face it, after you spend your vacation listening to Glenn Beck fans foaming at the mouth, it’s almost a relief to settle back and listen to Jim DeMint talk. At least he’s not yelling. So there may be hope for a decent healthcare bill. After almost 40 days of non-stop town hall lunacy, the Democrats in Congress might have developed some immunity to stupidity.