Flashback 1991: Democrats Investigate George H.W. Bush For School Speech

Big Media and Leftists Democrats ridiculed those who were upset with the notion of President Barry Vladimir Hussein Soetero Obama giving a nationwide speech to school children. They called the concerns of Real Americans "irrational" and "ignorant." However, in today's Washington Examiner, Byron York reminds us that Democrats ordered the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate George H.W. Bush's speech to America's youngsters on October 1, 1991.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."

That didn't stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it "cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

Unlike the pro-Obama materials created by Dear Leader's administration, the Bush Department of Education did not create lesson plans asking children to write a letter about how they could help him achieve his policy goals.

Democrats Censor Republican Mail

The Democrats have lost all sense of reality. Congressman John Carter of Texas has gone public with communication he received from the Franking Commission. Representative Carter wanted to let his constituents know he is working to protect them from government-run health care. It seems that phrase is not allowed by Nancy Pelosi's Kommissars.

“I received the script back from the majority, and there are a couple of changes that need to be made to make it compliant,” the Franking Commission e-mail said. “In the first paragraph change ‘House Democrats unveiled a government run health care plan’ to either ‘the house majority (sic) unveiled a public option health care plan’ or 'Just this past week the House majority (sic) unveiled a health care plan which I believe will cost taxpayers ….’”

“Change this on both scripts and send it back to me,” the e-mail concluded.

This is not bipartisanship. In fact, this isn't even American. The Democrats seem to believe that victory in a couple elections gives them the authority to establish a one-party regime. It is amazing that the same people who accused George W. Bush of threatening free speech for eight years (and none spent a day in jail, were fined a single penny or prevented from writing or saying anything) now are party to the suppression of political speech. I guess that is the kind of "change" the Leftist-Liberal-Progressives had in mind.