Republicans demand equal time to harangue students

Next Tuesday President Obama plans to talk to high school students in Virginia and make the speech available simultaneously to schools around the country as a White House video feed. His focus will be encouraging students to do well in school and to take their studies seriously.

As might be expected, when news of the plan became public it immediately caused a furor among conservatives, who are used to having only Republican presidents talk to students. Schools are being inundated with complaints about the attempt by that man in the White House to indoctrinate children with his 'socialist agenda' and to create a 'cult of personality' such as exist in Cuba and North Korea. Initially Republican critics sought to prevent schools from letting students see that man in the White House speak, or keep their children home from school to teach them a kind of civics lesson.

Today, however, GOP leaders settled on a more aggressive strategy. Congressional Republican leaders demanded that the television networks grant them equal time to respond to the President's message on September 8.

Schools in several states quickly agreed to show students the GOP rebuttal, and in Texas one school system near Dallas that already announced it will not allow Obama's address to be seen decided to make the Republican rejoinder mandatory.

The Republicans have selected Bill O'Reilly to deliver their rebuttal. His spokesman announced that O'Reilly will focus on the danger of personality-driven politics. He'll also stress that students should cease from studying foreign languages, which he'll describe as 'unAmerican', and disrespect their teachers, who are unionized. O'Reilly will especially encourage students to engage in bullying and harrassment. In the long term, he'll say, they should try to drop out of school before they can be confused by too much information.