Flashback: Students Sang Bush's Praises Too (And For Katrina response!)

[Ian David]

Republicans have been in an uproar recently over video footage of children at a New Jersey elementary school singing the praises of President Barack Obama. The outrage has been fueled mainly by a constant drumbeat from conservative media. But on Friday it boiled over into the realm of political opportunism when the Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising appeal calling the episode an "indoctrination of our nations... children" and "fanaticism."

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

Alas, such "propaganda" has not been limited to despots, dictators and the Obama White House. As a savvy source points out, back in 2006 children from Gulf Coast states serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the President, Congress, and Federal Emergency Management Agency for their response to -- of all things -- Hurricane Katrina. The lyrics were as follow:

Our country's stood beside us People have sent us aid. Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade. Congress, Bush and FEMA People across our land Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!

The event took place at that year's White House Easter Egg Roll and included roughly 100 children from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. President Bush, it seems, wasn't in attendance during the song itself. But he was there earlier, when the First Lady read the book, Will You Be My Friend: A Bunny and Bird Story by Nancy Tafuri, to the children.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/flashback-students-sang-b_n_300372.html


See also:


Children Singing Songs to Dear Leader

Posted on: September 28, 2009 9:23 AM, by Ed Brayton

I'm sure you've seen the right wing going apeshit over a bunch of elementary school kids singing a song of praise to President Obama. Guess what? They're right. Children singing songs to a political leader -- any political leader -- is downright creepy and the teachers responsible should get some serious counseling for their very poor judgment.

Of course, they've gone way over the top in their typically irrational way. In a fundraising letter, RNC chairman Michael Steele said "this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America." Like seemingly everything else these days, the right responds with invocations of Naziism and Communism.

But while they're right in their objections, they're also hypocrites. There's no need to search for historical analogs in China or the Soviet Union. All Steele had to do was look at President Bush a mere three years ago when he was being serenaded by a group of school children singing a song praising him for, of all things, his quick and effective response to Hurricane Katrina.

More:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/09/children_singing_songs_to_dear.php




Also:

Children Singing Praises To President Nixon In 1972
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z199q-sZr4Y

[jemelanson]

1. It's only indoctrination when the President is not a

White Republican Man. Ironic isn't it?

[mimitabby]

2. ah geez

when i was a kid I made up a song about Pres John Kennedy. Kids sing.