Panic about Obama speech was overblown

A few hours after President Barack Obama's address to the nation's school children on Tuesday, things seemed to be going OK.

There'd been no reports of pubescent socialist hordes demanding health care. No seizures of Transformers and Hannah Montana lunchboxes for redistribution of fruit snacks and PB&J among the people.

No olive-drab uniforms in place of the jeans and plaids and hoodie sweat shirts on the racks over at Abercrombie Kids.

And parents say teenagers appeared still to be making decisions based on accustomed principles of “what's in it for me?”

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need? OMG, stop embarrassing yourself.

No, in these first delicate hours after the President urged our impressionable youth to work hard and stay in school, it seems safe to say his thinly veiled attempt at mind control didn't take.

It almost makes you wonder if the panic over his address was a teensy bit much. If those parents and pundits weren't overthinking when they got all in a twist about a lesson plan urging students to think how they might “help the president.”

That particular idea was axed after a firestorm of criticism.

“It's not the children's jobs to help President Obama,” Johnson County Republican Party co-chairwoman Deb Thornton told a reporter at one newspaper.

But it apparently is their parents' job to politicize every presidential act or message, no matter how neutral.

Which is why I say alarm-sounders didn't go far enough in drawing attention to a single address made by a sitting president. We need to dig deeper to expose the propaganda infecting civics and American history curricula across the country.

Every day, teachers indoctrinate students with the idea that all red, white and blue of us have the same president, who swears an oath to defend the Constitution.

They spread the dangerous myth that elections are held every two, four or six years, separated by a sizable chunk of time when candidates actually govern.

It's time we shine a light on that kind of filth.

As Obama said Tuesday: “Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.”

Personally, I'm embracing my talent for sniffing out conspiracy.

But wait - wouldn't using my skills play right into his devious hand? Scratch the whole plan.

Nice try, but you can't brainwash this American.

Jennifer Hemmingsen's column appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Contact the writer at (319) 339-3154 or jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com