Those people who promote a strong and inclusive - shall we say, intrusive - Federal Government miss few opportunities.  The most recent among the dramatically obvious incursions, if perhaps a rather harmless one, is President Barack Hussein Obama’s speech from an Arlington County, Virginia public high school to every public school in the Nation except those numerous schools which did not broadcast the talk, forbade attendance or made attendance optional.

The substance of the talk was satisfactory.  However, content is not the key.  Rather, although played down by much of the media, liberal as the media is, the key is impropriety.  In other words, is it proper for the chief of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to speak to the school children of America as though he were their leader, inspiration or pater familia - and as though the Federal Government, rather than State and local governments, has, or ought to have, even more role in the operation and curriculum of public schools?  (The President’s two children are in private school - a wise decision, considering the reeking deficiency of District of Columbia public schools and possibly a security risk.)

A lesser negative lies in the original White House lesson suggestion - namely, that students ought to write themselves letters “ . . . to help the President . . .” After some, wholly justified, negative response, the White House toned down its suggestion, substituting students’ “ . . . educational goals . . .” for assistance to the President.

Several Presidents have visited schools - to dramatize support for public education, not to speak from on high.  President George H. W. Bush actually delivered a somewhat similar, if not so pervasively national, speech from a Washington, D. C. public junior high school in 1991.  In advance he roundly was denounced by some liberal Members of Congress.  The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor even directed a General Accounting Office (“GAO”) investigation as to legality.  GAO did not find the action unlawful.  Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, now a distinguished and erudite United States Senator and once President of the University of Tennessee, had to testify in defense of the Bush presentation.

That leads to the observation that some of us, including myself, question the wisdom of President James Earl (Jimmy) Carter, Jr. and a liberal Congress’ having established the Department of Education (“DOE”). Since DOE commenced to function on May 4, 1980, DOE’s record has been almost entirely spending Federal taxpayers’ money to interfere with State and local administration of public schools, with public and private schools, with public and private colleges and universities.  More federalism in reverse.

In any event, whatever the content, the President of the United States is not the father of our people.  As chief executive of a government facing a record national debt, a pervasive economic recession, vast unemployment, wars abroad, risks of terrorist attack and at least two unpredictable national nuclear-development programs, the President has truly national and Constitutional tasks to which to attend.  The role of pater familia surely is not one of them.

Marion Edwyn Harrison

Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.