Well .. he stuck to the script, and by last evening the people who had been in such a panic over the president's speech to the nation's school children were looking, shall we say, foolish. It was actually a very strong event for Obama. He got to deliver a good positive message to the nation's school children and, in the process, he got to embarrass his opponents.

One problem .. the teleprompter. Obama delivered the speech at some high school near Washington and, predictably, had to use teleprompter. This meant that he was either looking 45 degrees to the left or right, but never directly into the camera. Most of Obama's audience was out there on the other side of that TV camera, and that's where he should have been looking. Not once did he actually look the children in classrooms across America in the eye. Since we're talking Obama here, I just had to find a criticism.

I'm sorry .. but this is about as lame as it gets. This chorus of "it wasn't the speech, it was the lesson plan" line the opponents of Obama's speech came up with yesterday would have been funny if it hadn't been so pathetic. Here's just one of the emails we received yesterday:

"The problem isn't Obama's speech. We knew all the time it would be very warm and fuzzy-innocuous, if you will. The real issue and problem is the teacher instructed fact sheets/student study guides and their scary agenda."

Grow up and admit it .. you blew this one. Obama and the Democrats played you like a banjo. Admit it and move on ... there's a government takeover of health care that needs to be fought.

Before we move on ourselves ... another email:

"Your attack on those that were opposed to the President and his minions original plan of propogandizing school children is eerily similar to Arianna Huffington's journey to kooksville. I hope you are not becoming the male version of Arianna."

By the way .. .my Townhall.com column yesterday "Republicans get Rolled ... and Deservedly So" was the second most read column on Townhall.com yesterday and received the second highest number of comments --- most negative. I was beat out in both categories by Thomas Sowell. There's just no way I could ever measure up to Thomas Sowell.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. Today I'll deliver my version of a speech to America's school children. It will be during the first syndicated hour of my program, and then repeated during the Information Overload Hour. After today it will be available to Boortz Blast subscribers. Let me know what you think.

Gee, maybe I need to clarify since some of you don't seem to get it. By "available to Boortz Blast subscribers", we mean we are going to put a link to the text and audio in the next Boortz Blast newsletter (comes out 9/10 in the afternoon.) If you want it, subscribe. Mmmmkay? Just poke that link up there. -ww

Are you still with me? I haven't chased you off yet with my intemperate remarks about Obama's school speech ... I want to share a great quote with you. I found this while doing some research for my own speech to the students. After reading this quote you may wonder, as I did, where do we go to find this type of wisdom today. Here you go:

"Only here in America were the common folk of the Old World given a chance to show that they could do on their own, without a master to push and order them about. History contrived an earth-shaking joke when it lifted by the nape of the neck lowly peasants, shopkeepers, laborers, paupers, jailbirds and drunks from the midst of Europe, bumped them on a vast virgin continent and said: Go for it. It is yours!"

That quote is from Eric Hoffer's book, The Ordeal of Change.

Now here's the problem ... we are so far removed from the type of America that Hoffer described that I dare say most Americans don't realize the brilliance in this quote.

Okay ... I know that you are tired of it. By "it" I mean healthcare. But the issue is just too important. We are talking about 18% of our economy. We are talking about personal freedoms and your tax dollars. Tonight Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress to talk about healthcare. Now THIS is a speech that will matter a lot more to your life than the one he gave yesterday to your precious snowflake.

The biggest question about tonight's speech is whether or not Obama will push for a government healthcare option. There were hints yesterday that he might back off what the uninformed call the "public option," If he does you can bet that the government option will be waiting in the wings waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting American people just a wee bit down the road.

Other ideas are milling around Washington as well. Yesterday I told you about Senator Max Baucus and some of his proposals on healthcare. More details are now available. For instance, Senator Baucus' plan would call for fines of up to $3,800 on families who fail to obtain medical insurance. Super. Now can someone please tell me where you go in our Constitution to find a clause that permits the Imperial Federal Government to use force to make you buy anything? If I decide that I want to be responsible for my own healthcare, just who is the government to tell me I cannot? What if I win the lottery? What if I'm sitting on $150 million in cash and I decide that I will probably be able to handle any health care expenses by myself without dealing with a government or private insurance bureaucracy? Is the federal government really going to pull out the guns to force me to comply? That's right .. the guns. Remember, government is force. You stand up to the government and sooner or later the guns come out.

Oh .. and don't give me the argument that the government already forces you to buy auto insurance. That's just not so. You can own whatever car you want and refuse to insure it - so long as you don't take that car onto a public highway. You can drive around your farm, your private racetrack .. drive as much as you want without seatbelts, insurance, headlights, even brakes. Knock yourself out. When you drive on the public highways, however, you enter into a contract with the other citizens using those highways. That contract dictates that you have liability insurance on your car. Pretty simple when you apply a little rational thought to it, isn't it?

Oh how I would have liked to have been sitting on the Fox & Friends curvy couch this morning when they interviewed presidential mouthpiece Robert Gibbs. Here's a hint on how that interview would have gone.

When Gibbs made a reference to people who are " ... fortunate enough to have health insurance." I would have stepped right in:

Excuse me, Mr. Gibbs .. are you saying that some people have health insurance just because they're lucky? Is this really a matter of luck? Are you going to tell a head of household who has sacrificed to make sure that his family is properly insured that he was just lucky? That he was just fortunate? And are you also telling us that heads of household who don't provide their family with insurance aren't irresponsible, they were just not fortunate? Does the Obama Administration think that individual responsibility plays any role in the health care debate?

Hey .. you on the curvy couch. Stop wimping out.

Just in case you're actually putting more importance on this than you are on your current issue of People Magazine, you can read the nitty-gritty details of Baucus' plan for yourself.

Here are some questions you might ask about the mandatory coverage angle:

Just take a look at the "Massachusetts Model." In Massachusetts you are required by law to have health insurance coverage. This is essentially what the Democrats are considering on a federal scale. Want the painful truth about the "Massachusetts Model"? Here are a few to get you started:

1. Employer-based health insurance for a family of four in Massachusetts costs an average of $16,897, the average national cost is $12,700. Individual policies available in other states and underwritten by nationally known companies are not available in Massachusetts because excess regulation has destroyed the market for private health insurance.
   (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10268)
    
2. Thanks to all of the regulation, Insurance premiums in Massachusetts rose by 7.4% in 2007, 8 to 12% in 2008 and are expected to rise by 9% in 2009. In 2007, private health insurance premiums for the rest of the US grew by only 6.0 percent.
   (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10268).

There's more where that came from. Now THIS is what we should be debating.

We are still experiencing some liberal derangement syndrome over the resignation of "green jobs czar" Van Jones. It wasn't hard to predict that the whole mess would end up being about race. Mary Mitchell of the Chicago-Sun Times offers this:

"Ironically, Beck isn't looking for evidence of corruption or malfeasance. He's apparently hunting for rhetoric that would scare the bejeebies out of white folks, many of whom have never had a conversation with a black person ...

"The Beck attack is the same strategy that right-wing conservative radio and TV hosts used during the Obama campaign.

"After finding video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright using harsh language to describe race relations in this country, the hosts at Fox News had a field day.

"Jones is being sacrificed in the same way the Rev. Wright was sacrificed.

"Ironically, Beck, who had the gall to call the president of the United States a racist, is using the race card to alarm whites.

"African Americans aren't the ones who are crying because Obama has a platform to talk to all of America's children about doing well in school.

"And African Americans aren't losing sleep at night worrying that radicals have taken over the White House.

"Although the Obama administration has bent over backward trying to gain the acceptance of distrustful whites, so far it isn't happening.

"Beck and people like him can't seem to accept that John McCain lost the election and a black man and the people of his choosing are running the country.

"Given the critical battle under way over health care, Jones did the right thing.

"But let's stop pretending that the fierce opposition from the right isn't racism.

It is."

Just hold on folks .. you're going to see more and more of this. As Obama's popularity dips .. .and more and more people begin to doubt the wisdom of his plans for massive government expansion and retribution toward the private sector, the Obama defenders are going to run to the refuge of race. After all, they have years of practice here. Whenever someone who happens to be black encounters opposition to a policy idea ... those who disagree are charged with racism. It's childish, moronic and inevitable. Get used to it. It will become standard fare with Obama.

You are probably starting to hear the name Mark Lloyd more and more. This would be Barack Obama Chief Diversity Officer of the FCC. But Mark Lloyd may be facing the next wave of conservative criticism. And here are a few reasons as to why ....

FCC's Chief Diversity Officer Wants Private Broadcasters to Pay a Sum Equal to Their Total Operating Costs to Fund Public Broadcasting

Inspired by Saul Alinsky, FCC 'Diversity' Chief Calls for 'Confrontational Movement' to Give Public Broadcasting Dominant Role in Communications

FCC Diversity Chief Asked Liberals to Copy FDR, Take on Limbaugh, Murdoch, Supreme Court

FCC Diversity Chief Says Republican Communications Policies Hurt Civil Rights

Top Senate Republican Fears FCC's 'Diversity' Chief May Use 'Back Door' to Regulate Talk Radio

Now ... on to some reading assignments!

Barack Obama will soon become the first American president to chair the UN's 15-member Security Council.

Thomas Sowell's take on Obama's speech tonight: What Barack Obama says Wednesday night is not nearly as important as what he has been doing-- and how he has been doing it.

Representative Charles Boustany Jr., a heart surgeon from Louisiana, will deliver the Republican response to Obama's address on healthcare.

With Barack Obama's speech tonight on healthcare reform, Dick Morris says that Obama will push seniors further and further away from supporting the Democrats.

There is a lot of chatter over this White House conference call with the National Endowment of the Arts and the effort to address political issues.

If there is one thing that Barack Obama is really good at, it is giving speeches.

The United States is no longer the most competitive economy in the world. Which country tops the list?

As Jamie Dupree pointed out, perhaps the more interesting part of the Van Jones saga is the mainstream media coverage ... or lack thereof.

A former campaign advisor for Barack Obama says that he is losing patience with the White House.

Barack Obama has still yet to fill the position of Surgeon General.

Joe Kennedy, nephew of Ted Kennedy, may consider running for his uncle's Senate seat. But his connection to Hugo Chavez and Citgo may be his downfall.

Slobbering Barney's next political endeavor: a cabinet member.

You want more tourists to come to America, so you ... charge them more? Only government.

Congressman Baron Hill reinforces the point that this is HIS townhall meeting. Got it?

A federal court in Washington has upheld the ban of a Christian hymn from playing at a government high school graduation.

Eco-terrorists doing what they do best