Reading Between The Lines

I got the following in my email from a friend of mine. I have wanted to do something similar to the president's school speech myself. How could I not, after listening to the right wing wackjobs who complained the president was attempting to brainwash their children. But my friend did it before I did, so I'll post his version. I think you can tell which is the president speaking and which is my friend. If not, I can't help you. Actually, nothing can help you.

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today?

That's a personal question, children, and you don't have to answer it.

When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years.

HE ADMITS IT! HE ADMITS IT! And Indonesia is RIGHT NEXT TO KENYA. (Teachers, please remove all maps and globes from the classroom at this point.)

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

Or not. Seriously, who the hell cares?

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer.

That's not true. Many of you will be good at nothing. Trust us, kids, we've watched you grow. Most of you will drift through life as directionless failures. Then you'll become senators.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work.

Hard work is for suckers. There's two ways to be succeed in this world. One, get your dad to do it for you, then claim the success as your own. Two, win the lottery. In fact, borrow money from your dad to spend on lottery tickets. You're not made of money.

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.

Given that most of you won't, you can see why we think it's a waste of time and money to give you dedicated teachers and good schools. I mean, no sense pissing money away. Oh, and it's your fault.

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.

Don't knock yourself out on it, though, because intellectual endeavor is for liberals and communists.  But the three most nonsensical essays will be published by Regnery Publishing. Any of you proving to have exceptional illiteracy will be made Fox News anchors.

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.

Are we getting through to you yet? Knowing the "right" answer to something is hard. But if you just believe whatever the hell you want, you're done. Boom, pencils down, recess time. Isn't that just a hell of a lot easier for both you and us?

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.

Except military, from now on. Hint-itty-hint-hint, kids.

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.

That's why Sarah Palin is the Best American To Ever Walk The Planet. If you call it "moving on", it ain't quitting.

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?

Our bet? "Thanks for not making torture an indictable offense!" Seriously, kids, we can't thank you enough for that.

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

OK, that's just shameless pandering now. That's like something HitlerStalin would say. (Teachers, please remove all history books from the classroom at this point...)