From 'bathroom bills' to 'lesson plans' - the right exploits children again

Aesop once wrote a fable about a hungry wolf who saw a lamb by a river bank. The wolf wanted "justification" to eat the lamb. He threw all sorts of charges of impropriety at the innocent creature but the lamb refuted them all.

Finally the wolf says, "You claim to be innocent, but I know you are lying so to hell with it." And then proceeded to devour the lamb, proving that when people want to do evil, they will use any excuse to justify their behavior.

In the case of President's Obama's speech to children on Sept. 8, it seems that the excuse is to "protect the children."

This recent controversy over President Obama's speech is nonsense. We all know it and we should say it loudly and often.

And not only that, it demonstrates just how some on the right, especially the religious right, operate.

Those who are making all of this noise about the President's speech claim that they have no arguments with it per se but with the "lesson plans" that accompany it, especially the part about advising children to write on how they can help the President.

The whine about the lesson plan is a big con. And it's an old one.

We all have seen this "I don't mind the big idea but the little details scare me" con before.

Remember when certain areas of the country (i.e. counties in Maine, Florida, etc.) were trying to pass transgender-inclusive gay rights bills?

The people opposing the bills claimed that they didn't have a problem with the "spirit of the bills," but that they left a huge opening for "sexual predators" to invade women's bathrooms and locker rooms.

That, of course was an evasive tactic.

What someone on their side of the argument did was look through the bills until they found a loophole that they could exploit. And they did this because they were too cowardly to publicly say that they didn't want transgender-inclusive gay rights bills to pass because they don't like homosexuality.

To say this would have left them open for the charge of bigotry.

But saying that they didn't support transgender-inclusive gay rights bills (or as they termed them - "bathroom bills,") because they would cause harm to children was a more advantageous tallking point.

So now in the case of President Obama's speech to children, we are seeing a foul case of deja vu.

These folks (Michelle Malkin, the conservative radio show hosts and bloggers, the religious right, elected officials in Florida) who started the nonsense about Obama's speech to children don't like the President, period. No matter what he does or says, he will remain on the very top of their crap list and they are going to do their best to undermine his efforts at all turns.

If he were Moses and parted the Red Sea for them to cross, they would be complaining about how the soles of their feet got wet.

But they don't want to openly say "we don't want the President to give this speech because we just don't like Obama."

Therefore we are saddled with this "I'm scared that President Obama will be indoctrinating children because the 'lesson plans' of his speech give me pause" talking point that will be repeated continuously without a good challenge by the liars on Fox News and other television programs with anchors too cowardly to challenge it for fear of looking "liberally biased."

Just like the case of the alleged "bathroom bills," someone looked through the plans of the President speech and found a loophole in which they can hang their lies on.

Evasive loopholes will continue to exist until someone has the courage to plug them up.

But unfortunately very few want to do this.