Editor’s note: Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
A chant by New Jersey elementary school children in praise of President Barack Hussein Obama has generated substantial criticism, with folks across the political spectrum objecting to the cult-like recitation:
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said all should lend a hand to make the country strong again
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today, equal work means equal pay
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said take a stand, make sure everyone gets a chance
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black and white, all are equal in his sight
Uhm, uhm, uhm, Barack Hussein Obama
YEAH. Barack Hussein Obama
However, an expert in such matters said the adulation of our dear leader is not new. Howard Milhouse Bashford, chief archivist at the Library of the Presidency in Buncombe, Mo., said that while the practice has not been widespread, in the case of nearly every presidency from the mid-20th century on, some teacher somewhere has had little kids singing the praises of the chief executive.
“The chants might not have mentioned the president’s name six times in 10 lines, as in the New Jersey case,” he said, “but they certainly gave the president credit for his marvelous leadership.
“Why, we had a case right here in Buncombe, in 1948, after Missouri’s favorite son, Harry S. Truman won the election. Third-grade teacher Rosy Posey had her children reciting:
Our dear President Truman,
He’s so good, it’s hardly human.
“And four years later, just next door – so to speak – in Kansas, Humphrey Hipplewhite was leading seventh graders at Wheatfield Junior High in a cheer:
Dwight David Eisenhower! Dwight David Eisenhower!
He’s even better than self-risin’ flour!
“Excuse me. That one always brings a tear to my eye,” Bashford said, reaching for a handkerchief.
“And Jack Kennedy?” we asked.
“Well, he was very popular,” said Bashford, “and a semi-literate fourth-grade teacher in New York City tried to rhyme ‘Kennedy’ with ‘remedy,’ but that effort didn’t go very far. However, another faculty member at the same school had better luck with:
Sound the fanfare on the tuba!
He kept red missiles out of Cuba!
“And of course, every American of a certain age recalls the widely employed chant for Lyndon Baines Johnson:
“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you …”
No. Wait. That’s a different kind of chant altogether. What I meant to cite were the lines from Oil Patch Elementary in Borger, Texas:
LBJ inspires our piety
Because he leads the Great Society.
“Good one!” we said. “How about Richard Nixon?”
Bashford sighed, “Nixon was elected twice, but somehow didn’t inspire poetry of the kind you’d want school kids to memorize … too many bad puns on his nickname.
“Ford was just a caretaker, and Carter’s kids had bad teeth, but Ronald Reagan got things going again.”
The fifth grade class at Yreka, California’s Sometimes-a-Vowel Elementary was led in the chant:
Ronald Reagan! Ronald Reagan!
He’s helping us bring home the bacon!
“It’s not the purest rhyme, I know, but it captured the spirit of the times. Bush the First didn’t inspire anything in his single term, and Bill Clinton didn’t have the kind of popularity Obama rode in on. Remember, he never gained a majority of the popular vote. George W. Bush, however, inspired a chant that showed up in a number of schools.”
“Really?” we said. “That’s surprising.”
“Not when you consider the political leaning of the teachers’ unions,” Bashford replied. “The chant that showed up most often, in both elementary and secondary grades, was:
Who’s the man who we berate?
Bush, Bush, Bush!
The guy who stole the Sunshine State!
Bush, Bush, Bush!
Who’s the guy we love to hate?
Bush, Bush, Bush!
Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate!”
“Who knew this sort of thing happened so often?” we said. “Did these past incidents provoke any controversy?”
“Well,” said Bashford, “There were objections – from Buncombe to Borger – and the teachers universally had to back off and apologize. What’s different this time is there actually are media apologists for this kind of cult-of-personality thing. That wasn’t so in the past.”
Asked why this might be, the archivist replied, “It could be because today’s leaders in the mainstream media are products of today’s public schools.”
A new kind of president’s cabinet: We’ve had the regular Cabinet; we’ve had “kitchen cabinets,” but the Obama administration has something entirely new. Consider these presidential advisers:
- Van Jones, communist agitator turned “green czar”;
- Cass Sunstein, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, who thinks dogs and horses, being smarter than newborns, should be accorded higher legal status than infants;
- “Science czar” John Holdren, who believes involuntary sterilization for population control probably is constitutional;
- Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the administration’s medical adviser who believes the Hippocratic Oath’s emphasis on curing people is a problem; and
- Emanuel’s brother, Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who gives zealotry a bad name.
- Safe schools czar Kevin Jennings, pederast enabler.
While Obama still has a Cabinet composed of (more or less) conventional experts and politicians, we need a new name for his roster of “czars.” Call it the president’s “Creep-inet.”
