I am really bummed out. I swear, if there was a better country to go to, I'd go. The lunatics have taken over the asylum, and I'm not feeling so comfortable here anymore.

What the hell? Now we have to protect our children from the President?????????????They talk about taking back their country? Well I want mine back! I don't want to live in a mean, spiteful, hateful country full of idiots who want to sit back while their neighbors suffer, and slaughter wolves, and bully people into silence and draw Hitler mustaches on pictures of our President and make a mockery out of Christianity...

I'm frickin' pissed off and I don't know what to do w/ my anger.

WHAT???

Obama didn't cancel the speech. the wingnuts would rather let George W. use their kids as cannon fodder in a needless oil war than have them encouraged by a Black president to work hard in school.

Let's not forget the Hungry Caterpillar, being read to preschool children as NYC and DC were under attack. Was W trying to divert attention? Yes, I bet he was, trying to fool the children while he let terrorists attack! Why didn't we think of that?

They want their country back. The one that had white Presidents.

I honestly had no idea it would be this bad.

No. The problem is that we've taken control of the the asylum back from the inmates and they are rioting. You have to keep reminding yourself that the racheting up of the crazy is a direct result of their loss of control.

An educated elecorate is the right-wing's worst nightmare. They can't lie to, mislead, bully or infuse false fear into an intelligent, informed public.

Keep 'em stupid, so they'll vote Repuglican.

Great political strategy. Good for the country? Not so much...

Likewise. I want to take the road of peaceful engagement, but between the idiots and those manipulating the idiots, I have this rising anager driving a desire to lash out. But no one wins if we get into battle royale to win back our country. Somehow we have find a way to steer the discourse back to sanity. It's just right now I'm feeling a bit hopeless about that achieving that.

I share the anger, but not at the media. Like it or not, the "morons" make enough noise that it is bound to end up on the minds of enough people (on both sides of the ideological divide - let's not forget that left-leaning sites are often in front of the corporate media on issues like this) that the corporate media would be foolish NOT to lick their chopped chops and dive in.

Now, I don't think that we should ignore the ideological kooks when they start making noise; I am fully in support of the Media Matters, the TPM's, and so on attacking the nonsense. To not address it just gives the Becks/Limbaughs/etc too much of an open field. But, we do have to save some of our energy so that we can fight the truly important fights.

I think you are partly correct here. Our side is in charge and a black man is leading us which is their primary objection and the source of the hysteria: their racist fears and hatred. Unfortunately we are not "in control" at all because our leaders, including Obama, refuse to forcefully denounce the Republicans and their allies in the business world who are fomenting this stuff. Obama's fantasy of bipartisanship and his complete membership in the DC Democratic philosophy of ignoring, instead of fighting, Republican extremism is allowing this stuff to continue and also in some respects giving the corporate media a free pass. Unless and until the Democrats stand up for themselves forcefully denouncing this bullshit, the media has only one side to report. Even though they know the truth, they refuse to call the lunatics what they are. They require someone else to do so in order to maintain their false nuetrality and apparent professional committment not to identify known lies, obviously recognizable extremism, and self evident lunacy.

Elk Grove "Unified" School District outside Sacramento, CA which is notorious for these kinds of conservatively-based moronic antics and is a huge district, has sent out warning notices to the parents about Obama's speech to school children about education. (Oh MY GOD!!! IS HE CRAZY? WHAT IS OBAMA THINKING WANTING TO TALK ABOUT EDUCATION TO SCHOOL KIDS! OH MY GOD!!!!).

ELK GROVE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT OUTSIDE SACRAMENTO HAS SENT OUT WARNING NOTICES TO PARENTS ABOUT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES SPEAKING TO THEIR STUDENTS. OK. WHERE ARE WE AS A NATION WHEN THIS KIND OF INSANITY TAKES PLACE

How much of your tax dollars are supporting this school? You are paying for this potentially.

Feel free to let them know how you feel about this.

The Left really has never accepted that the majority of this country are uneducated, so their perceptions are based on who "looks" like they are on top. Thinkers hear arguments and know, regardless of the animation levels of the speakers, whose point is more valid. Slow minds merely give the "win" to the one who made the most noise. We need the bumper sticker.

I have to respectively disagree Dan. While it may be the case with some I think the vast majority of Republican politicians are playing to their base...all is fair in love, war and politics. They are trying to fire them up to reinstill some passion in their movement. And right now all they have is that their base is excited about how they think Obama is a dangerous socialist...so the GOP is running with it.

I agree with you Libertine except that I also agree that some of the Republicans are probably getting a bit fearful of the mobs they've created and which they continue to encourage. But, having said that, they aren't fearful enough to stop fanning the flames. Someone said recently on TV, I think Dan Savage, that their real aim is to literally get Obama eliminated. I pray not, but who would be surprised if that were the outcome of the hysteria they are fomenting? It was preciesly this sort of hateful hysteria that put JFK's life in danger. Remember, right wingers were handing out "Wanted" posters with JFK's picture and a list of their fantasized grievances against him in Dallas the week he was killed.

Hello I guess ill let you know that im one of those right wing radical extremists that fill you all with so much pitty and disgust. I wont hurl insults your direction because I don’t know you and I imagine that you are probably decent people with differing political views than my own.

I would like to tell you why I have a problem with this. First let me state I have no problem with the President addressing school children as it has been done in the past. I do however feel that parents should have the right to make the choice of having their children attend.

The part of this debacle that frightens me was the choice of the administration to include lesson plans with the speech. This opens up an pandoras box of issues. If we let this white house set lesson plans around speeches to your children you can bet the next administration will do the same (here’s the part I play on your fear of republicans) Should it be a republican administration whats to say they wouldn’t use this access to our children for their own ends. Maybe by perhaps increasing the number of these speeches with included lesson plans to a monthly time frame. And if these lesson plans included things like having children read from speeches from great republicans like Cheney and Rove. I hope this gives you pause.

If it makes you feel better to make statements like "The only people who would make this objection are complete morons and, frankly, asshole right wing, racists" than please do so with pride, as I respect your right of free speech.

With all due respect I must say hooey to your "concerns" which are misplaced, uninformed and foolish.

Nothing personal but please don't try to foist upon anyone the idea that having the President talk to kids about working hard in school is in ANY way a bad thing. Had Bush done the very same thing and parents had raised the same "concerns" of the looneys who are objecting to it, and who you are associating yourself with as right wing lite, they would have either been completely ignored by the media as extremists or called unpatriotic and disrespectful. I don't think it's unpatriotic, but it is disrespectful and stupid. For you to put the patina of not being quite so crazed as the people you are, in part, associating with is appalling. You apparently, like most Republicans, project quite clearly your fears. You believe that Obama will try to take some political/partisan advantage of these kids in the same manner that scumbags like Rove or cynical hacks like W might be expected to. But the difference is that Obama, for all his faults, is not a partisan hack and has some honor. He would never do anything like that. That you or anyone else would make the claim with a straight face that you fear he might behave in the manner of the Rove or Bush is simply absurd.

Of course it would have been a great deal more difficult for Bush to urge kids to do well in school since he was and remains a dolt very unlike Obama who was an excellent student and who, unlike Bush, worked very hard to get where he is in life. Everything Bush ever had was given to him. If his Dad hadn't kept baling him out all his life from one failure after another, Bush would just be another drunk in Texas. Obama also has enough respect for the office in which he serves that he would not debase it in that very right wing Republican manner. Bush had money, but no class. That's why he had Rove. Birds of a feather ya know.

It doesn't make me feel better to call the people who are in hysterics over this nonflap exactly hat they are. It makes me feel honest.

You could be right! So when are we going to get out the water canons and rubber bullets and get them back into their rooms? I've had enough to last the next 7+ years already!

Considering they are the WINNERS and are the MAJORITY, they're a little tightly wound aren't they Artimus 101? Not to worry, every once in a while you're bound to find one not frothing at the mouth. Have patience.