Barack Obama’s Original School Speech

Coming under pressure last week, the Obama Administration altered the original lesson plans it had prepared to accompany the President’s school speech today so as to remove some of the more objectionable elements.

To further allay fears that the speech itself might be political in nature or otherwise push a partisan or liberal agenda, the White House yesterday released the text of the speech.

However, that leaves open the question of whether the speech itself has also been altered in light of the controversy.

As it so happens, we have come upon the original version:

Barack Obama’s Original School Speech

Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got comrades tuning in from all across America. 

When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia where my mother had given birth to me, and so not being a native-born American, she couldn’t send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.   A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there in the middle of Das Kapital. 

Now I’ve talked a lot about responsibility. I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility and your parents’ responsibility.

What I want to focus on today is the responsibility you have to the state. 

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer to party leaders. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is so as to further the state’s objectives. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. 

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write articles extolling my administration’s many accomplishments in the officially government licensed media I’m planning once we bring back the Fairness Doctrine – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next computer program to manipulate futures trading in gold bullion so as to ensure there isn’t a collapse in the value of the dollar despite runaway budget deficits, – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. 

And you’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to secure the support of your parents for House Bill 3200 and the public option.  To promote Cap and Trade legislation to your neighbors, and to make sure we pass The Employee Free Choice Act.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to teach me Friedrich Engels in the original German.  And let me tell you, that wasn’t easy for a Muslim kid.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college and develop a close and lasting relationship with Bill Ayers, my long-time mentor and the ghostwriter of my two autobiographies, which incidentally, will serve as your textbooks for the entire school year.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. 

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. 

Young people who have been quietly taken in by ACORN and who, using federal funds from the "Serve America Act," are right now being trained to serve in a private security force loyal only to me.

And I expect all of you to do the same. 

You won’t love every subject you study.  And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try. That’s OK.  Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. 

Vladimir Lenin was expelled from Kazan University for his political ideals.  Che Guevarra had a marriage that fell apart.  And yet despite these early failures, both rose to prominence: One leading a socialist revolution, the other launching a lucrative line of T-shirts.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? Which of my agenda items are you going to further? Who have you informed on for subversive political activities such as speaking out at town hall meetings?

I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or your party leader down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, and as my pastor always put it, "God damn you, and God damn America."

As you can see, through what can only be termed an overabundance of caution, the White House sanitized the speech a bit, changing a few passages here and there to avoid any possibility that the lunatic right-wing fringe will attempt to manufacture some controversy out of nothing.

 Still, it really doesn’t have the same zip, does it?

J.

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