So the White House has now changed the subject matter regarding his planned speech to the nation’s public school children on September 8:

The Obama administration is rethinking its course recommendations for students ahead of President Obama’s address to the the nation’s schoolchildren next week, rewriting its suggestions to teachers for student assignments on how to “help the president.”

White House aides said the language was supposed to be an inspirational, pro-education message to America’s youths, but its unintended consequences were evident.

Among the activities initially suggested for pre-K to 6th grade students was to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”

Another assignment for students after hearing the speech was to discuss what “the president wants us to do.”

The suggestion about writing letters has since been changed to: “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.”

Heh. Pink Floyd speaks to truth.

When I first heard that Prez wanted to give a speech to the nation’s public school children on September 8th, I thought it was kind of a lark. I mean – with everything else going on in the world these days, why would the President of the United States feel the need to take valuable time out of his schedule to make a live speech to school kids? I mean, as quaint as this idea sounds on the surface, there are some pretty big problems facing this country both domestically and internationally right now, and there is, after all, such an invention known as video, right?

The cynic in me tells me there was always more behind this than just a “c’mon kids, have a good year, do your homework, make good grades” pep talk. Once again, Michelle Malkin hits the nail square on the head, raising issues that the mainstream dino-media used to be responsible for:

Nor can the Democrats’ strategy of using kiddie human shields to advance their legislative agenda be overlooked in the context and timing of Obama’s speech. Children have been front and center of the Left’s push for an ever-increasing government role in health care – from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s use of seventh-grader Baltimore school kid Graeme Frost to push for the massive S-CHIP entitlement expansion, to President Obama’s none-too-coincidental choice of Massachusetts 11-year-old town hall questioner Julia Hall (the daughter of a prominent Obama activist/organizer who assailed Obamacare critics’ “mean” signs), to the Kennedy family’s decision to put grandson Max Allen on center stage to pray for health care reform at his uncle’s funeral last week.

So when the Department of Education directs schools to gather children ‘round the TV monitors for Obama’s pep talk and then do this…

• Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.

• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

…parents have every right to worry about their children being used as Political Guinea Pigs for Change.

What should be concerning to everyone here, whether you’re an Obama supporter or not, is the fact that this guy can’t seem to get out of campaign mode and off of people’s TVs to start doing the business of state. Maybe being seen and heard is more important to his ego and narcissist nature than having to do real presidential stuff. Maybe the actual work of President either bores the crap out of him or scares the bejeezus out of him. Perhaps both.

But considering some of the other ways this President and his administration have sought to impose themselves and their statist agenda on everything from the auto industry, Wall Street, private-sector salaries, and a health care reform proposal that would allow the government to impose its own agenda on every aspect of people’s lives, parents are right to be concerned about their child’s school being turned into a venue for political indoctrination of the worst kind.

What the White House was (probably still is) attempting to do reminds me that great scene in M. Night Shyamalan’s wonderful 2002 flick “Signs”, where Mel Gibson’s younger brother visits the Army recruiter and gets an earful about what might really be going on:

Recruiter: I’ve got it figured.

Merrill: You do?

Recruiter: I’ve had two separate folks tell me there have been strangers around these parts last couple nights. Can’t tell what they look like ’cause they’re staying in the shadows… covert-like. Nobody’s been hurt, mind you. And that’s the giveaway…

Merrill: I see.

Recruiter: It’s called “probing”. It’s a military procedure. You send out a reconnaissance group, very small, to check things out. Not to engage but to evaluate the situation. Evaluate the level of danger. Make sure things are all clear.

Merrill: Clear for what?

Recruiter: For the rest of them.

You see, I don’t believe anything this White House does is by accident or without a great deal of thought or planning. Remember, these are all Chicago guys – smart, savvy, and ruthless in the game of politics. Only problem is, they’re starting to find out just how much they’re playing the game by outdated rules. Unfortunately for them, the traditional mainstream dino-media no longer has either the ear or the trust of the American people; increasingly, we’re now getting our information through the blogsphere, Internet-based political forums, and sites like Twitter and Facebook. So all the back-tracking you’re now seeing is the political equivalent of getting caught with your hands in the cookie jar.

From the start, this administration has been all about one thing and one thing only: exerting and expanding control over political speech, the free-market economy, the nation’s industrial and financial sectors and institutions, and the social and political habits of people. And when you understand this very fundamental desire on their part, it’s hard not to see that it’s a very small and slippery slope from asking children to write letters to themselves about “what they can do to help the President” and making posters about “the country’s goals” to having them report back to their teachers any activities on the part of their parents and friends that don’t serve those purposes.

There has never been a time in our nation’s history during peacetime where the freedoms of Americans has been so much under assault. The people in the White House from the Oval Office on down know exactly what they’re trying to do. Always. And this time, they got caught.

The President just wants to give an innocent pep-talk to the nation’s public school children. Right smack-dab in the middle of a rancorous debate over his ambitious, all-encompassing goal to reform the nation’s health-care system. On the very day Congress returns from its August recess. What could be so wrong with that?

Probing, indeed.