IGNORANCE IS TREATABLE; STUPIDITY IS A CONSTANT

The President is not welcome to speak to schools. LOST can't get his head around these people who see the President as this Evil Force ready to entrance impressionable young minds with buzzwords and catchphrases that will send them home, zombie-like, requesting their own personal copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, or humming the Al Qaida Fight Song (whatever that is!) This mind set is being fanned by all of the usual suspects (Fox News, the AM Radio talk show chorus, and certain sectarian denominations), to a point where anything this President does is immediately suspect - if not nefarious. It transcends ridiculous in and of itself; it is funny in a "Pulp Fiction" sort of way (laughing but you're not sure why) when one realizes that so many of the same people so concerned right now about a speech to school kids universally wore blank stares while the drumbeat to invade Iraq - on illegitimate claims of weapons stockpiles - was ramped up to Rumba tempo.

Imagine how much less onerous the current fiscal crisis would be without the waste of nearly a trillion dollars that was the Iraq war - and without the billions more that palliative care and treatment of thousands of young servicemen and women wounded and maimed in an elective war will ultimately cost this nation. But, no, let's prevent the President from speaking to kids. That's the fight, the hill where we will plant our flag or die trying. Disgustingly shallow, and oh, so stupid.