milk was a bad choice

Sep
4th

Fri

Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.”
“That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it,” Higginbottom said.

—

The Associated Press: Obama speech to students draws conservative ire

Much of the uproar is over-the-top, but still … it would have been completely inappropriate for Obama to commandeer the attention of a truly captive young audience for the purpose of telling them to write letters to themselves “about what they can do to help the president.” Such brazen self-aggrandizement naturally makes people skeptical of Obama’s motives. The administration always seems to err on the side of creepy. (“Inartfully worded?”—no … what you changed it to is nowhere near what it was). Needless to say, no student or citizen should feel obligated to help the President do anything.

People should be upset about this. That doesn’t mean they should call Obama a fascist or a communist. You don’t have to call someone a name to call them out for bad behavior. And make no mistake, this was bad behavior.

The President should focus more on how he can help schoolchildren than on how they can help him.

(via jeffmiller)

by “inartfully worded” i think he means, “wow, i can’t believe you jokers picked up on that. we’ll be more subtle next time.” that the department of education saw the initial curriculum fit for dissemination, while not surprising, should be cause for serious concern.

(via hilker)