2009-09-08 When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings

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Excerpt

The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

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.'"

This article does not give any links to its sources (aside from a link to their own reprinting of Obama's speech). This may be because this was a fairly obscure news item in a largely pre-web era, so very few informational resources from that time are available online. It does, however provide some specific claims which can be checked:

  • that the Washington Post ran a front-page story on 1991-10-02 suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit, and which included the quote "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props."
  • that then-House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt said "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students ... And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
  • that 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.
  • that Ford, on October 17, 1991, summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech
  • that Ford said, at the hearing, "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. 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."
  • that the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly, writing in a letter to Ford that "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 speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."
  • that 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."

Assuming all this is true, then, some contrasts between the two events:

1991 2009
a reaction after the speech, and based on the speech's contents a reaction before the speech, based on nothing actually contained in the speech
pursuit of specific claims via proper channels general hysteria over vague claims of "socialist propaganda"
the hypocrisy of a president addressing students after cutting public educational funds the integrity of a president addressing students after working to improve public education

Discussion:



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