The Politicization of Everything

Carol Platt Liebau | September 04, 2009 4:13 PM

Not surprisingly, some (even on the right) have dismissed the protests of people who are uncomfortable with President Obama addressing the nation's school children (with lesson suggestions, since withdrawn, that would include children writing letters about how they could help him).

I've been uncomfortable with the idea (previous post here) because it struck me as the President trying to advance his politics through use of prerogatives that have previously been his to use for studiously nonpartisan objectives.

And the problem is that it's part of a pattern. As Ed Lasky over at The American Thinker points out, a look at the profiles of this year's White House fellows suggests that they have not been picked on a purely non-partisan basis; all of them have elements in their background that suggest sympathy to the President's political causes.

Similarly, the NY Post's Abby Wisse Schachter reports on apparent efforts by Obama's National Endowment for the Arts to get recipients of taxpayer art grants to lobby for the Obama agenda.

Stories like these make it harder than it might otherwise be to take on faith The White House's assertions that the President simply wants to make an innocuous, work-hard-and-do-well speech to America's school children. Adding a lesson plan -- since withdrawn -- suggesting that the children determine how they can help the President (not the country, but the President) only adds to the suspicion that for this administration, there's nothing that won't be politicized, given the opportunity.