No Moral Equivalence Between Reagan and Bush Address to School Children and Obama Indoctrination

Mike – see post #34. You are not having a good day…

MataHarley –

As far as the constitutional issue, I have addressed it. Where does it say in the constitution that there will be anything other than a militia, i.e. not a standing force, an army and a navy. As for “providing for the defense of the nation.” Look at article 1, section 8, clause 1.

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

How can you say that this allows for the federal government to provide for our defense and not our welfare through a national health plan? Defense and Welfare are two loaded words and cover a LOT of different things. I am not saying that I don’t think we should have an air force, or that its illegal to use troops without a declaration of war. I am saying, though, if you accept these things, then you cannot turn around and say that national healthcare or social security is somehow unconstitutional. As for defending against invasion, what kind of an invasion does that apply to? Does it mean solely a military one, if we expand it to things like biological warfare, can the government allow everybody to get medical attention.

So…would you say that Federal government has no right to enforce de-segregation in schools, and that should be left up to the states? And, yes, I do subscribe to the “living constitution” train of thought. AND SO DO YOU! You cannot pick and choose one issue to say be a strict constructionist and another to be liberal. Do you really want to dismantle everything that the government does that is not in the constitution?

Also, your point about states rights – I am only mentioning that because of the previous post about amendment #10. Obviously the states rights part applies to whether the power to create a universal health plan lies with the federal or state government.

As for the enemy of our personal liberty – What about someone who is in a terrible accident? Their life is forever changed, AND they have to loose everything because their insurance won’t cover them? The majority of bankruptcies caused by medical bills are from people that had insurance. You have to consider the OUTCOMES of a certain policy. If you want to object to a national health plan in principle, fine. I object in principle to people dying because they don’t go to the doctor because they know they can’t afford it. You can say that Medicare is unconstitutional, but would you force an 80 year old with a heart condition to go shop for his own policy? What is more important to you? We have different principles. You want to hold the government to the letter of the law, no matter what the outcome. My principle is this: “How can we best protect, defend, and help to ensure a better life for our citizens.” If you would rather deny people the ability to see the doctor and let people live on the street because they loose everything to medical bills in the richest nation on earth, fine. Al least you have your principles, right?

As far as being a “lost cause,” if you mean trying to get me to stop caring about people’s well being and just worry about the letter of the law, then yes, I am. If it makes me a socialist to care about the poor and disenfranchised, then yes, I am. And don’t kid yourself into believing that you actually care. Look at the HDI of other more socialist countries. Their people are healthier, their babies have a better survival rate, and they have a higher overall standard of living. As I said before, my principle is just different than yours. Mine is based on people, yours on laws.

It’s all political with the Obamatons. They can’t see it because to them it’s natural.

Do we need to remind them what a stink Dems raised when the first President Bush made a speech without the instructions to obey?

P.S. Word, good vid… It’s all about Obama and the cult of personality. I bet YOUCANTBESERIOUS was the first in line to chant praise for the dear leader.

QUESTION
(Allow 1 hour 45 minutes)

Compare & contrast the following three speeches made by three Presidents to schoolchildren. Which of these, if any, goes further in promoting their political beliefs and attempt to ‘indoctrinate’ the audience?

SPEECH A

Thank you all, and welcome to the White House, and thank you for coming. I want to congratulate all of you from John A. Holmes High School in Edenton, North Carolina, on your great achievements this year and on your upcoming graduation. And a special greeting to Rob Boyce, the principal of this fine school.

As you know, my remarks are being broadcast live over radio and television to high school students throughout the country. While I was in Tokyo at the economic summit, I found myself thinking about all of you, and I decided that when I got back it’d be good to report to you — share some thoughts that I’ve been having about the future.

In general, conditions in our country are about as bright as this very bright afternoon. I was worrying when I put that line in there that it might start to rain, and I’d have to say something else. We’ve been working to take an economy that was in bad shape and get it moving and growing again; take our national defense and make it first-rate again after a long period of decline; and to restore reason, respect, and reality to our foreign policy. And I think it’s fair to say that we’ve made a good deal of progress.

Only 5 years ago our economy suffered from high inflation, high interest rates, mushrooming government spending, and steadily increasing unemployment. A lot of people couldn’t find jobs, and people on fixed incomes were finding it harder to buy the basics, such as food and shelter. Well, we got inflation down, interest rates down, and our economy created over 1\1/2\ million new jobs just last year alone. The poor are now increasingly able to dig themselves out of poverty, and that’s been good economic news.

The good news in defense is that our Armed Forces, which were suffering from neglect and low funding, have now made a comeback. Morale is up in the services, and the quality of our men and women in uniform has never been better — and I mean never. As a matter of fact, we have the highest percentage of high school graduates in uniform today than we’ve ever had in the history of our nation, even back when we had the compulsory draft. In addition, our nation has encouraged a more realistic sense of defense needs.

In foreign affairs we’ve kept our friends close and the lines of communication with our adversaries open. We’ve tried to give the world the sense that the United States has a coherent and logical foreign policy that reflects our respect for freedom and our opposition to tyranny.
The point is that all we’ve done has had, and will continue to have, a direct impact on your lives. And the fact is, it’s your future, not ours. And all that we’ve done, we’ve done with an eye toward how it would impact you. We want to make your future better, because tomorrow belongs to you. And since you’re the leaders of tomorrow, I wanted to talk to all of you as a friend about the things you’ll have to do to ensure a prosperous nation and a peaceful world. And I’m sure that peace and prosperity must be at the top of your agenda for the future.

You have some special responsibilities ahead of you — very important responsibilities. America is back, yes, but we still face major challenges in the world. And it’s your generation that will have to accept the primary responsibility for tackling these challenges. It’s important that you’re fit for the future and that you be all that you can be. So, go for it! In the area of education you have a responsibility to try to learn and care about scientific and intellectual inquiry. The world is an increasingly competitive place. And if we’re to compete, we’ll have to do it with brainpower — your brainpower. So, keep learning and hit those books.

We have to remain economically competitive, and that means being aware of two things: first, what makes economies tick, and second, what works in other societies. We’ve been trying very hard in Washington to make America even more economically fit by really overhauling our entire tax structure. When we came into office, the top personal tax rate that the Federal Government could put on your income was 70 percent. Now, you can understand, I think, that if you were getting up in those brackets — there were 14 different tax brackets, depending on the amount of money in each bracket you earned. And when you could look and say, “If I earn another dollar, I only get to keep 30 cents out of it,” you can imagine the lack of incentive there. Well, we lowered it to 50 percent, and the economy really took off. Now we’re trying to lower it yet again so that families can keep more of their money and so the national economy will be lean and trim and fit for the future.

And it’s your generation that will defend freedom from its adversaries. The biggest contribution you can make to that quest is to become a good citizen. Good citizenship is vitally important if democracies are to continue. Good citizenship means trying to understand the issues and great questions of your day. It also means voting. To vote is to take part in this grand experiment called democracy in America. It’s your right and your responsibility to take part. Good citizenship also might mean considering going into teaching as a profession. There’s a teacher shortage, as you may know. You could help ease the situation and give to others the advantages you’ve been given if you become a teacher yourself. And it’s also important that you stay in school. That diploma counts. And I just want to personally congratulate those who have overcome some disadvantage and who stuck it out and will graduate this year.

And part of being a good citizen, part of being fit for the future so that you can meet America’s agenda for the future, is seeing to it that you live your life with a clear mind and a steady intellect. And that means saying no to drugs. Nancy has traveled across the country talking to young people like you. And many of them have talked to her about the allure of drugs, about the drug culture, and the kind of peer pressure that you come under to experiment and try out drugs. But when you come right down to it, drugs are just a dead-end street. They have nothing to offer you. I think you also ought to remember we only get one set of machinery. If you wear this set out, you can’t take it and trade it in someplace for a used one or a new one. So, what you do now and early in your life decides how able you’re going to be to enjoy yourself when you get to be my age.

And I want to tell you, I’m enjoying myself. I’ve talked to young people from China to Europe to the islands in the Caribbean. And let me tell you, they’re incredibly bright and talented, and they’re going to create quite a future for themselves. And you can’t keep up or catch up if you allow your mind to be clouded by drugs.

Well, that’s more or less what I wanted to say to you today. I’ll be talking to many young people over the next few months, and I’ll be expanding on certain points and amplifying certain themes. But for today, before your questions, I just want to let you know that I have been thinking about you very much. You are a special generation, and you’re facing special challenges. And the biggest is to be ready for a future that will prove to be demanding and exciting. Soon, we’ll enter the 21st century, a time that’ll have more than its share of great wonders. The next 10 or 15 years may well be the most exciting and challenging in the history of man. There’s the continuing revolution in technology, the possibility of curing diseases that have stalked us from the caveman era. There’s the marvelous conquest of space, a rich frontier whose riches we’ve barely glimpsed. And there’s the struggle between the democracies and those countries which are not democratic.

All of these possibilities bring with them questions. And it’s your generation that will have to answer them. That makes you all very important, indeed. You have much before you. And all I can say is that you’ve begun brilliantly. Continue to pursue excellence. Be proud of your country and its heritage, and be proud of yourselves, as we are proud of all of you.

SPEECH B

Thank you, Ms. Mostoller, and thanks for allowing me to visit your classroom to talk to you and all these students, and millions more in classrooms all across the country.

You know, long before I became President I was a parent. I remember the times that my kids came up with a really tough question or a difficult decision. I tried my best never to shut them down with a quick “no.” I would simply say those three magic words that made that problem disappear: “Ask your Mother.”

Let me tell you why I’ve made the trip up from the White House to Alice Deal Junior High. I’m not here to teach a lesson. You already have a very good teacher. I’m not here to tell you what to do or what to think. Maybe you’re accustomed to adults talking about you and at you; well, today, I’m here to talk to you and challenge you. Education matters, and what you do today, and what you don’t do can change your future.

Every day, we hear more bad news about our schools. Maybe you saw today’s headline, I don’t know if you had a chance to look at it, about the release of the new National Goals Report. Get the camera to come in and take a look at this for a moment. In math, for instance, this national report card shows that, nationwide, five of six eighth graders don’t know the math they need to move up to the ninth grade.

In spite of troubling statistics like this one, I don’t see this report, however, as just bad news, and I’ll tell you why. This report tells us a lot about what you know and what you don’t know. It gives us something to build on. It shows us our strengths and the weaknesses that we’ve go to correct. It sets forth a challenge to all of us: Work harder, learn more, revolutionize American education.

I know you’ve heard about stanines and percentiles, surveys and statistics, but here’s what all that fancy talk really means: Education means the difference between a good future and a lousy one. Reports don’t give us the right to make excuses. Our scores will tell us where we are and where we need to go.

I mentioned earlier the bad news we hear about schools today. But what we don’t hear enough about are the success stories. You know, all over America, thousands of schools do succeed, even against tough odds, even against all odds. Kids from all over the District of Columbia petition to get into Alice Deal School here because parents know this school works. It works because of teachers like the one standing over here, Ms. Mostoller, who decided at the age of 25 — maybe you all know this, but a lot of people around the country don’t — she decided at the age of 25 that she wanted to teach. She was standing in a supermarket checkout line when she saw a magazine ad about college. She went back to school, worked her way through in 7 years, waiting tables to pay tuition. She made it, and so can you.

This school here works because of students like the ones with me today, students like Rachel Rusch — where’s Rachel? Right there, okay — a member of Alice Deal’s award-winning “Math Counts” team. Rachel, you tell me if I’m wrong, but you and six other students in this class alone have taken part in the Johns Hopkins Talent Search. They took the college entrance exams on an experimental basis last year as seventh graders. Even in junior high, some of them scored well enough to get into college right now. So, let’s just put it on the line. You’ve got the brains. Now, put them to work — certainly, not for me, but for you.

Progress starts when we ask more of ourselves, our schools and, yes, you, our students. We made a start nationally now by setting six National Education Goals to meet the challenges of the 21st century. By the year 2000, at least 9 in every 10 students should graduate from high school. We should be first in the world in math and science. We need to regularly test student’s abilities. Every American child should start school ready to learn; every American adult should be literate; and every American school should be safe and drug-free. Reaching those goals is the aim of a strategy that we call America 2000, a crusade for excellence in American education, school by school, community by community.

But what does all this mean, you might say, what is he doing, what does this all mean for the students right here in this room? Fast-forward — 5 years from now. Unless things change, between now and 1996 as many as one in four of today’s eighth graders will not graduate with their class. In some cities, the dropout rate is twice that high or higher. Imagine: Out of a total of nearly 3 million of your fellow classmates nationwide, an army of more than half a million dropouts.

I ask every student watching today: Look around you. Count four students. Start with yourself. No one dreams of becoming a dropout, but far too many do. Which one of you won’t make it through school?

The fact is, every one of you can. Let’s make a pact then right here. Let’s work to see that 5 years from now, you and your friends will be more than sad statistics. Give yourself a decent shot at your dreams. Stay in school. Get that diploma.

Let’s go back to the future. In the fall of 1996, 5 years from now, nearly half of today’s eighth graders who get their diplomas will enter the working world. More than half the graduates will stay in school and become the college class of the year 2000.

The question each student watching today should ask is: Where will I be, where will I be 5 years from now? Will I be holding down a good job and maybe working toward a better one, or will I be out of school and out of work? Will I be on a college campus, or out running the streets?
Think about that tonight when you’re at a kitchen table doing some homework; while your parents are meeting your teachers like so many millions do this year at back-to-school nights all across our great country.

I’m asking you to put two and two together: Make the connection between the homework you do tonight, the test you take tomorrow, and where you’ll be 5, 15, even 50 years from now. You see, the real world doesn’t begin somewhere else, some time way down there in the distant future. The real world starts right here. What you do here will have consequences for your whole lives.

Let me tell you something, many of you may find very hard to believe this. You’re in control. You’re thinking: How can the President say that about kids like us when we don’t even have our driver’s license? But think about it, and you’ll see what I mean.

Think about drugs. You see films. You hear police experts and tough speakers from the outside. You get stern lectures from everyone: movie stars, athletes, teachers, parents, friends. But you know and I know that all the drug prevention programs, all the pledges, all the preaching in the world won’t pull you through that critical moment when someone offers drugs. At that moment, everything comes down to you. Yes or no, you’ve got to choose, and the answer will change your life. Your parents won’t make the decision. Your teachers won’t make the decision. Your friends won’t make the decision. It’s up to you. It takes guts to take control.

A sound body and a sound mind, they go together, as my friend, and he is a friend, Arnold Schwarzenegger says. He’s crossing the Nation talking with students about the importance of fitness. And real fitness means no drugs.

Studies show a decline in drug use, and that’s good, that’s encouraging, I think. And every student who draws the line against drugs really deserves credit for that. But drugs and violence continue to threaten every school, every small town and suburb in America. And as students, you have a right to be physically safe at school. You should never have to worry that a quarrel in the hallway will lead to gunfire in the playground. Fear should never follow you into the classroom.

If you have to take the long way home after school so you don’t cross paths with the gang hanging on the corner, if outsiders roam the halls of your school hassling kids, hassling students, you must take control. Go to your teacher, or go to your principal, or go to your parents, as difficult as it may be, go to the school board if you have to. Demand discipline. If good people chicken out, bad people take control. Together, we can — I really believe this — we can drive the drugs and guns and senseless violence out of our schools.

When it comes to your own education, what I’m saying is take control. Don’t say school is boring and blame it on your teachers. Make your teachers work hard. Tell them you want a first-class education. Tell them that you’re here to learn.

Block out the kids who think it’s not cool to be smart. I can’t understand for the life of me what’s so great about being stupid. If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now when they’re stuck in a dead-end job? Don’t let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

Take control — challenge yourself. Only you know how hard you work. Maybe you can fake, maybe, just maybe you can fake your way into a job, but you won’t keep it for long if you don’t have the know-how to get the job done. Maybe you can cram the week before that marking period ends, and turn that C into a B. But you can’t con your way past the SAT and into college. If you don’t work hard, who gets hurt? If you cheat, who pays the price? If you cut corners, if you hunt for the easy A, who comes up short? Easy answer to that one: You do.

You’re in control, but you are not alone. People want you to succeed. They want to help you succeed. Here at Deal, teachers like your outstanding teacher standing here with us today, Ms. Mostoller, from your principal, Mr. Moss, to your custodian, Mr. Francis. Right now in classrooms across this country, in the communities you call home, when things get tough, when answers are hard to come by, there’s a teacher, a parent, a friend or family member ready to help you. They want to see you make it.

If you take school seriously, you won’t have to settle for a job, just any job. You’ll have a career. If you make it your business to learn, one day you’ll be a better parent. You may not think about it now, but one day your children will want to look up at you and say, “I’ve got the smartest Mom and Dad in the world.” Don’t disappoint them.

Let me leave you with a simple message: Every time you walk through that classroom door, make it your mission to get a good education. Don’t do it just because your parents, or even the President, tells you. Do it for yourselves. Do it for your future. And while you’re at it, help a little brother or sister to learn, or maybe even Mom or Dad. Let me know how you’re doing. Write me a letter — and I’m serious about this one — write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals. I think you know the address.

Now we’re going to walk over to the school auditorium to say hello to the rest of the student body. To all the students across the country who watched us here in this great classroom today, may I simply say thank you and good luck to you this school year.
And now, Ms. Mostoller, if you’ll kindly lead the way. Thank you all very much. Nice to be with you.

SPEECH C

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

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. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. 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.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

After reading the speeches in their entirety, I think that it’s obvious which one is the most politically motivated.

I am not surprised that Bush’s speech was so good. For all the criticism that he got for his speaking skills and all credit that Reagan got for being a great communicator, I can’t even stomach listening to Reagan, but Bush I like to listen too. Bush’s speech is more “inspiring” while I think Obama’s speech is meant more to focus on the specifics of what you need to do to succeed in school.

After Bush 41 spoke, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder D-Colorado, called for Congressional investigations…didn’t hear any calls for investigations on Obama’s “schoochildren address.” So who is more over-reactionary?

Sorry, Post #78 should be addressed to Mata, not Mike

But.. Mike, did you do your reading?

Aaron – post #74 “As I have stated before, I think the Democrats were wrong to criticize Bush – he gave a great address and I only wish that we had worked harder to make the things that he talked about come true.”

Mike – post #76 “Perhaps Aaron would like to suggest that Dems hold hearings on Obama’s speech?”

Aaron: Weren’t you the one who accused some of us of just flinging insults instead of facts?

So, how do you justify saying: “Mike, you prove yourself to be a moron again….You just can’t keep yourself from looking like the joke that you are “ in a comment that you later edited?

Thanks for relieving me of ANY burden I might have to maintain a civil discussion with you.

Clearly, any attempt at that would be a waste of time.

You have FLOODED this thread and others with THOUSANDS OF WORDS and dare to demand we read and recall every single one?

What kind of pompous, self-important ass are you?

You are a big waste of time all the way around.

Frankly, I don’t take you seriously at all. You’re the joke here.

If you don’t discover some manners real quick you will find your comments are deleted.

This isn’t the first time Aaron. It better be the last.

In keeping with the civility idea, Is it Okay to call people “a’holes” now?

Mata – I understand that you have offered solutions to cutting costs. I am not necessarily opposed to them.

What about offering a catastrophic policy to everyone, like Singapore?

I am under the impression that you feel that Medicare or government run insurance is not constitutional, is this not the case?

What about the fact that the majority of medical bankruptcies are for people with insurance? How can we realistically keep the insurance companies honest without a competitive government plan.

As to your comment about medicare knowledge – As I have mentioned before, My wife is a quadriplegic. The thing that you realize when you are dealing with an uncommon condition is that most people don’t know jack about your needs and how the system handles them. Unless you are in that kind of a situation, you do not have the kind of first had knowledge I have, nor I you. We have been constantly dealing with paperwork and fighting to get coverage for the past 4 years because medicare deals all the time with the elderly so they are used to it, but not so with the severely disabled.