What’s Wrong with the World

Puzzled - did Andrew Sullivan actually link to that?

Surely, were he inclined to bring up "It's Raining Men," he would have linked to the original.

No, Sullivan didn't link to it. I'm just pretending. :-)

You know, I have to admit, Obama or not, a first-grader asking any authority figure to 'make it rain candy' is cute and speaks to a child's innocence. Now if you catch the mainstream media doing similar (and no doubt you will) that's definitely sigh-worthy and pathetic.

Dr. Beckwith, did you just BarackRoll us? ;-)

Todd, the proper response to a child who thinks the President is a god figure who can make rain into candy is to correct him, not to encourage him. And let's not pretend this was done because it seemed "cute."

I'm pretty sure that said child will not be voting on a candidate when they're 18 based on whether or not a candidate can make it rain candy. I'm as opposed to many liberal moves as anyone here, but I steadfastly refuse to tilt at windmills.

But, on your sagely advice I in fact just got done explaining to my daughter the extreme impossibility of my wife being a plant (as she had claimed) me being a strawberry (as she had so boldly stated when asked) and her, as a result of that coupling being an airplane (as she also claimed), that it was biologically impossible, that we were mere mortals and all of the human race. I feel somehow superior now that I've crushed her tiny imagination when she, at the bold age of three, even knew she was kidding. Viva la curmudgeonry!

In all seriousness, even evil liberals can have a sense of humor, which is precisely why this was both included in the book as well as highlighted in the article's excerpt. If I'm a bad conservative because I found it amusing and 'cute'... so be it!

Dear Mr. President,

Please stop doing your best to make sure people can kill us. Please give us back the basic right to life that everyone else has (well except for the newborns you think should not be helped when they survive abortions. Could you give them the same basic human right too though?)

The Unborn.

Todd, I hope I'm not going to sound really curmudgeonly here, but my problem is not that the kid ever said anything like that but that he was obviously encouraged to think of Obama in this weird over-the-top way by the grownups. For example, there's this, in the story:

A special hardcopy edition of the book will be sent to the White House for Obama, who has done wonders to bring the office of the presidency to life for young people.

The letters were written in January amid Obama-mania at inauguration time as schools scrambled to bus kids to special viewing events and come up with computer screens and TVs for them to watch in classrooms and auditoriums.

This wasn't just some spontaneous outburst of imaginative comment on the part of the kid. This and all the others--others _way_ more boringly programmed-sounding, like "make this a greener planet" and "bring home all the troops"--were specifically sought out by adults as part of what the article itself calls "Obamamania." That's what's creepy about it. Not that some child had an extravagant imagination.

And adults really are encouraging this. There was the story I gave about the new practice in that public school of switching on a big picture of Obama during the pledge. They're pushing this idea that Obama is going to save us and do all these wonderful things.

I _doubt_--I'm willing to be corrected if I'm wrong--but I _doubt_ they had a "Dear Mr. Bush" contest at the first inauguration of Bush.

I would add too that by the time a child is a first-grader, it's really a good time to start teaching him what the President really does. Sort of a low-key civics lesson. Trying _on purpose_ to get kids to write out all of their most far-flung "hopes and dreams" for the President to "do" for the world, and holding a contest to choose among them, is deliberately trying to get them to think of the office of the President as something totally different from what it really is. It's poor education. Yet this was sponsored by the NEA.

There was the story I gave about the new practice in that public school of switching on a big picture of Obama during the pledge.

This I consider creepy. Very creepy. I still find it veeeery creepy.

One statement from a 7 year old in the presence of more disturbing Stepford-Children style responses I found funny.

I _doubt_--I'm willing to be corrected if I'm wrong--but I _doubt_ they had a "Dear Mr. Bush" contest at the first inauguration of Bush.

We had a 'Dear Mr. Reagan' when I was growing up. I don't recall if it was sponsored but it was certainly a concerted effort to 'get yours in' to the official whateveritwas. Could have just been our class or our school, I really don't know. They have published a book of children's letters to W, though. I believe it's available on Amazon. I'm pretty sure the NEA wasn't involved, though.

I've no doubt that many of these responses were chosen because of an agenda or were coached. That particular one struck me as humorous. The rest... not so much. And yeah, it's a good time to be teaching kids about such things, but, it's still something any kid might say. (I have occasionally dreamed of raining Snicker's bars and I've been around for a few more decades.) But we won't ever know if someone pulled him aside and said 'that's not really what he can do' but forwarded it on anyway because it's amusing.

And I was thinking about raining candy and the economic stimulus package on the way home. I'm starting to wonder if the president via a huge government candy purchase and spurious use of a few C-130's might be a better way to spend money over some of the pork in those bills.

On the night Obama won, the "on the street"[somewhere in L.A.] news coverage found one woman with tears in her eyes saying something similar [in my opinion] to these statements by the children

I've been working 2 jobs and barely making it and I have no health insurance, but now, I can quit one job and have the coverage I've been hoping for.

Not a perfect quote, but close enough to get the point across that even some of the kids have more realistic hopes than this woman has. Her tears were tears of joy that now she's found rest. I wonder if she's made it to the promised land yet.

I just looked at that Obamaroll link and I'm beyond confused:

Why's Obama doing the white-boy shuffle?

Someone needs to take that lame Sammy Davis Jr. song from the 70's, "The Candy Man," and make a video with it using images of the Dear Leader. I'm sure it would be a Youtube hit.