Conservatives' reaction to Obama's speech was ridiculous

President Obama zoomed past the end-of-honeymoon point all presidents eventually hit and landed straight in damned if he does, damned if he doesn't territory.

How else to explain how conservatives, who pushed Obama to have frank conversations on social challenges such as absentee fathers, could turn a speech to the nation's school children into a plot to foist socialist ideology upon tiny minds.

I'll reserve the bulk of my ire for the smallest minds, those inside the skulls of parents who threatened to keep their children home so they didn't hear the president's message.

The effect on Obama was unmistakable. The result was an encouraging but tepid pep-talk at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. Obama spoke of longing for a father and of grueling school days that began at 4:30 a.m. My favorite lines were: "You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it."

Lunatics on the far right accuse the president of being a socialist every time he strays from laments to actual policy. That forced Obama Tuesday to leave unsaid how government can better help students facing challenges from learning disabilities to poverty to homelessness. There was nothing about the ongoing efforts in Congress and on local school boards to reform public schools into places where hope is more than a word.

"That would be an adult speech," a colleague told me.

Um, high-school students are a few short years from becoming adults. Rather than giving them a crash civics course the night before the first election in which they can vote, how about trusting young people to be informed now about the issues facing our country.

Besides, where was all of this fear when President Ronald Reagan gave a similar speech to school children in 1988 or when President George H.W. Bush in 1991 urged students to work harder, learn more.

Of course those presidents hadn't been cast as Villain No. 1 in an ugly political cartoon.

Right wingers ought to consider the lesson kids learn as they watch adults spew hatred about Obama and cast the government as an inept outpost. Their children can't help but see the hypocrisy as their families drive on federally funded roads, seek services from federal institutions such as Veterans Affairs or Medicaid and Medicare and enjoy other fruits of government's labors.

Now that Obama has given his speech, the lunacy of the accusations is apparent. But why didn't we see it before?

Why did school districts begin stepping gingerly as though a book ban were in the offing? A reader alerted me to the Bellevue School District which initially said the president's speech would be available "to any teacher who wants to use it in a balanced discussion, so long as it fits within the education objectives of the class."

Why all the qualifiers? What part of work hard and stay in school needs balance? Introduce me to the teacher who wishes to inform students of the other side: Don't work hard and don't stay in school? In a statement, Bellevue said its caution was not meant to censure the president.

The White House also deserves a drubbing for backing at least partially down in the face of a mob. They deleted from Obama's speech a suggestion that school children write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. I would loved to have seen the thoughtful and informed suggestions.

I suspect Rush Limbaugh and his ilk were worried students would write different letters.

"Dear President Obama: I steamed open my parents' election ballot envelopes and changed all the choices to Democrats. I'll do it again in two years. Best, Bobby."

The right looks ridiculous shielding their children from the president. Smarter minds and parents ought to print the president's speech and read it to our kids at the start of every school year. Conservatives can muzzle the messenger but that doesn't mean the message shouldn't be delivered.

Lynne K. Varner's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is lvarner@seattletimes.com