To the Editor:
Re “Presidential Pep Talk Kicks Off Year for Millions of Students” (news article, Sept. 9), about the controversy over President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren:
What could possibly be wrong with a president’s exhorting schoolchildren to stay in school and to work hard?
And what could possibly be right about showing children that we owe no respect to the president or the highest elected office of our democracy if his or her views are different from ours or those of our parents?
M. B. Barlow
Eugene, Ore., Sept. 9, 2009
Note from KBJ: Do you suppose M. B. Barlow would have written this letter if the president giving the speech were George W. Bush?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 