COLORADO SPRINGS- The superintendent of District 12 schools announced Friday that Barack Obama’s address to schoolchildren on Tuesday will not be shown in his district’s schools. I’m no defender of this president, but I have to ask, what possible rationale could excuse such disrespect? It’s probably too easy to decry racism, so what’s left?

Personally, of course, I could imagine steering schoolchildren clear of George W. Bush. Old President Bush had a 13% or so approval rating. Foreign leaders dismissed him as a moron. It was whispered that he’d resumed drinking, and it was common knowledge that he’d been a cocaine user until his forties. George Bush was no example for impressionable youth. What parent could hold him up as a role model, other than the town drunk or village idiot who was not to be emulated? But I’m certain the same schools just a year ago would never have crossed that president.

Setting aside his surprising political turns, Barack Obama projects inspiring leadership qualities. He speaks intelligently with attentiveness and compassion. His message to children is to be one of encouragement in the hard times ahead, dealing with the increased imperative of higher education. Recent generations have been growing successively nihilistic. Perhaps the economy’s turn is an appropriate occasion for a president to address our nation’s kids. We like to call them our future.

Bush gave our schools the disastrous NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT which completely degraded public schools and ushered the calls for privatization of education under the guise of Charter Schools. In Colorado, Bush’s measure prompted the CSAPs, which hobble teachers by requiring classes to focus on passing standardized tests, instead of teaching broader lessons. Bush’s act also guarantees that military recruiters have access to the personal records of our children at their most vulnerable, to more easily prey upon them when they are rebellious teens. Bush was no friend of schoolchildren.

Obama on the other hand won a decisive victory in November, and no small number of his supporters were young children. Many teachers were pushing for Obama and his promise of hope, in the midst of a culture of pessimism sowed by George W. and his destructive agendas. Bush waged war against everything schoolchildren are fostered to care about. Obama’s campaign represented salvation for our planet. How now are school administrators prepared to extricate the students from their own personal rapport with the new president?

To quote a favorite Twit, Badbanana:

Obama is going to address the nation’s schoolchildren? One good fart joke and the Democrats control Congress for 60 years.

We know of course the high pitched extremists groups whom the superintendent thinks he is placating. They are the Teabaggers and Birthers who reject Obama as president. “He’s not my president” they say. They learned the phrase from their adversaries who protested the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, but never understood its meaning. Obviously they have nothing to teach children about the workings of democracy.

At the recent health care town hall hosted by Congressman Doug Lamborn, I had a chance to witness these Birthers, so named because they reject Barack Obama’s birth certificate. They are so certain that Obama will be discovered to be foreign born and will thus be stripped of the presidency. “Three More Months, Three More Months” they countered, while progressive citizens were chanting for health care reform.

Local wing nut business owner Ed Bircham was dancing a jig singing “Ho Ho, Obama’s Got To Go, Ho Ho.” Egged on by KVOR djs and unabashed gay-bashers, Ed Bircham repeated his calls for Obama’s removal from office.

Incredible. Obama hasn’t done anything yet –which is my complaint– so what have the teabaggers against him? It’s patently absurd, if it wasn’t so obviously bigoted. “No Country For Old Bigots” I yelled.

Actually I joined local NAACP leader James Tucker in interjecting “Obama Is Your President” between Bircham’s call for his ouster. “Respect Your President” we found ourselves saying, even as I knew that I would not hold myself to such restraint. On the other hand, my opposition to President Obama has nothing to do with his skin color. On what principles do these white men disagree with Barack Obama, except that they’re not about to show deference to a nigger?