Over across the pond today, in the now irrelevant dried and hollowed out husk of what remains of the British Empire, blogger Michael Tomasky, in the virtual pages of the Guardian newspaper's online edition, says that it is positively sick that conservatives in the United States should be in an uproar over President Obama's plan to talk to the kiddies on Sept. 8. The conservatives in America, he warns, are "so obsessed and so unconcerned about whether their attacks [on President Obama] are truthful that they will do and say anything. It's a sick situation."

Like any good leftist, Tomasky can't wait to unmask himself for the hypocrite that he is. All while excoriating American conservatives for their concern about the President's planned speech to the captive audience of children in America's schools, he admits, "If this had happened during the Bush years, I admit that I would've found it disturbing."

In other words, it's ok to hate President Bush (based on the perception that he is conservative, when in fact he is not), but, oh no, we must not tolerate criticism of his most exalted person, Mr. Obama. While holding our collective noses, we may wish to take pity upon our poorly educated ideological adversary from Merry old England. His persistent ignorance apparently includes a basic lack of knowledge of American history, i.e., particularly the part where our great forefathers threw his countrymen out of America for good. We didn't like the Brits telling us what we should do then, and it only seems right that we should have rather less regard for their opinions now.

We also should perhaps take pity on Tomasky for his ignorance of later Presidential politics in America. Here in the states united we have never been afraid to criticize our presidents because we are a free people. We are not ruled by the president; he is not our king, nor is he a dictator.

In our republic, the president exercises only the few and defined powers we the people choose to give him. And as he is only first among equals, we will criticize him as we wish, and we will oppose his actions when we disagree with him. This is our right, as free citizens. 

Again, we should pity those in the British Isles for their pathetic lack of understanding of these principles of American political life. 

And in the meantime, we'll go on opposing presidents, Republican or Democrat, whenever they attempt to use powers that the Constitution did not envision them having, such as the power to lecture children in classrooms around the country on September 8.

Why? Because while leftist ideologues writing for British newspapers may not understand America, here we know that the Constitution does not grant the federal government a role in education, and that includes the president.

Add comment