All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Reverend Al Sharpton, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have teamed up for a national tour to spotlight education reform, and the trio stopped by "Washington Unplugged" Monday to discuss why their efforts to encourage cooperation on the issue.

"I think you guys think if nobody walks away [with] a black eye that we did not have a meeting," Sharpton joked to CBS News' Fernando Suarez.

"When you have Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich show up to talk about an issue together you tend to get a lot more attention than if either one of us shows up buy oursleves," Gingrich said. "And that's led already around the country to a conversation about education reform."

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Conservatives were up in arms last week over a video showing New Jersey elementary school students singing songs praising President Obama -- evidence, critics suggested, that children were being indoctrinated in school.
The video was used as the basis for a Republican fundraising appeal, with Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele calling it "the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea."

Now a new video has surfaced showing children praising the president, and it is once again generating anger. The clip shows part of a PTA program at Sand Hill-Venable Elementary School in Ashville, North Carolina from February in which students were "paying tribute to various American heroes," the Mountain Express reports. You can watch the video, which was (obviously) put together by a critic of the program, above.

The video quickly made the rounds on conservative blogs and Fox News, where one anchor compared it to a campaign commercial.

As a result, the school district has reportedly been "inundated" with calls over the video, according to the Citizen-Times, with some callers issuing death threats and suggesting the school is brainwashing students.

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The Republican National Committee has sent a fundraising email to supporters tied to what it calls the "fanaticism" displayed in a video of New Jersey elementary-school students singing a song praising President Obama. (Watch it at left.)

RNC Chair Michael Steele writes that the video shows "the indoctrination of our nation's greatest treasure -- our children."

"Friend, this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea," Steele writes. "I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America."

The video, which shows students learning songs praising Mr. Obama for his "great accomplishments" and efforts to "make this country's economy No. 1 again," was posted on the conservative Drudge Report and reported by Fox News, prompting anger from conservatives.

"This is the type of fanaticism Republicans are up against as we fight to stop the Obama Democrats' radical leftist transformation of America," Steele writes in the fundraising email. "The only way our Party can defeat their liberal ambitions is by electing more Republicans in the upcoming 2009 state elections and the critical 2010 mid-term elections."

School administrators say students were taught the songs in the video, entitled "School Kids Taught To Praise Obama," in conjunction with February's Black History Month. The recording and release of the video, administrators said, had not been authorized.

A spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Education released a statement saying that "the commissioner has directed the superintendent to conduct a thorough review of what happened."

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A video showing elementary school students learning songs praising Barack Obama for his "great accomplishments" and efforts to "make this country's economy No. 1 again" is generating anger from conservatives today.

In the video at left, which was shot in June, students at New Jersey's B. Bernice Young Elementary School are shown singing about the president, in one case to the tune of "Jesus Loves the Little Children," according to Fox News.

The video was posted at the conservative Drudge Report and reported by Fox, prompting hundreds of comments from readers such as this one: "These thugs need to be shut down! This is absurde [sic] that this is happening today in our schools. People need to rise up and crush this socializing and indoctrination of our kids."

The anger over the video is reminiscent of complaints over the president's speech to students on the importance of working hard and staying in school, which was initially accompanied by a lesson plan encouraging students to think about how they could help Mr. Obama.

Some conservatives objected to the president's address being shown to their children and it wasn't shown in some districts.

Schools in Arlington, Texas, have cancelled plans to send students to an event involving President George W. Bush. The decision comes after the district attracted criticism for scheduling the Bush event despite opting not to show President Obama's recent speech to students.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the school had been planning to send about 600 fifth graders to the event involving Mr. Bush, which is taking place next Monday at Cowboys Stadium. At the event, the newspaper reports, "The Super Bowl XLV Host Committee plans to announce details of a community service and education program that they believe is one of the largest of its kind in the nation."

Super Bowl XLV will be held at the Dallas Cowboys' stadium in February 2011, at the end of next year's NFL season.

The school received an onslaught of negative attention for planning the trip to the Bush event in the wake of its decision not to show the Obama speech, which centered on the importance of working hard and staying in school.

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After a chorus of criticism from conservatives over President Obama’s back to school speech to children across the country, the speech this morning in Virginia seemed tame, the Washington Post’s Scott Wilson said.

CBS News’ Nancy Cordes asked Wilson whether he felt the president tried to “indoctrinate” children on “Washington Unplugged” today.

“There was a heavier emphasis on hand washing and cleanliness than there was on socialism,” he joked. “Last night the White House did take the unusual step of releasing this speech a day early to try to get parents and critics a chance to see what he planned to say.”

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Conservative pundits have been raising objections over President Barack Obama's planned speech to the nation's students on Tuesday in which he will encourage children to stay and excel in school.

Critics believe the president will use that speech to promote his political agenda, rather than simply inspire them to excel in class, and some school officials have said they will not let students watch it. Some parents have said they are considering keeping their kids out of school that day.

Florida Republican Party chair Jim Greer went so far as to accuse the president of trying to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda," and right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin accused the left of using kids in public schools as "guinea pigs and as junior lobbyists for their social liberal agenda."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the remarks reflected "silly season" in Washington, and reminded reporters that two Republican presidents have likewise given speeches to students: Ronald Reagan in 1988 and George H.W. Bush in 1991.

What did Presidents Reagan and Bush say? That America was created by and for religious people, convicts would celebrate gun bans, and the media doesn't tell you the whole story about an adminstration's successes.

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President Barack Obama plans to make a televised speech to America's school children next Tuesday about the importance of education and staying in school. But some critics believe the president will use that speech to promote his political agenda and some school officials said today they will not let students watch it. In Fort Worth, Texas, about a third of schools will not show it. Albuquerque, N.M., schools will let students opt out of watching and in Green Bay, Wis., they'll record the speech and let teachers decide later if it's appropriate.

CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor talked with CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of "Face the Nation" Bob Schieffer about the issue.

Glor: We should mention other presidents, including Ronald Reagan and the first president Bush had delivered similar speeches to students. Why is this speech in particular causing such a controversy?

Schieffer: Well, it is really stirred up a lot of people out there. I think some of it is genuine. I think there are people now who are frustrated, they're worried about the economy, they're worried about their jobs. But in today's world, the world of the Internet, when one person is frustrated, another person who shares that frustration soon finds out about it and they connect up. And then when you have these radio talk show hosts who fan the flames of these things, you have these instant firestorms of protests that blow up, as this one has blown up.

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Damon Weaver made his name in journalism with a campaign-time interview of then-Vice Presidential wannabe Joe Biden. Now, a veteran reporter at the age of 11, the Florida boy sat down at the White House to pepper the President himself on issues important to American kids.

Weaver admitted to being a bit nervous as he waited for the nation's leader to enter the Diplomatic Room. However, for the remainder of the nine minute "dream" interview, which appeared Thursday night on YouTube, his nerves never betrayed him.

The reporter, who has doubtless become something more of a media star than his position at Kathryn E. Cunningham Canal Point Elementary's KEC-TV initially promised, first prodded the Commander in Chief to reveal details of his upcoming education reform plans.

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I’d pay to see the exchange at Aldo Leopold Elementary School tomorrow when 10-year-old Kennedy Corpus’ teacher asks why she wasn’t in school yesterday.

The girl could say that her father took her to see the President at his Town Hall Meeting at Southwest High School.

“Did you bring a note,” the teacher might ask.

“Oh, yes,” Kennedy could say and then hand the teacher a note – not from her dad – but from President Obama.

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