Pictured: The Great Leader visits school named in his honor.
Singing a song about a sitting president: Stalinist indoctrination.
Attending a school named after a sitting president: patriotism.
Stockton school officials said they believe theirs will be the first school in the nation named for the president. The White House did not respond to requests for confirmation.
To one school board member, Clem Lee, a Republican, the Bush name is an expression of patriotism.
"It was an expression of the sentiment ‘America Now’ for me," Lee said. "There’s probably some post-9/11 stuff mixed in there. We have a president who is facing really an unprecedented challenge. So my vote was informed by a culmination of all those things.
"I am the first person to admit that it might be premature to honor a sitting president," he said. "But it’s quite defensible."
It always is.
By the way, the Republican-controlled Stockton school board’s decision to brainwash their small children into thinking George W. Bush was a great man name a public school after a sitting president was, according to the WSJ, unprecedented.
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Well, Stockton – no more needs to be said.
Well I for one am just shocked!
And how is that premature honor working out for you these days, Mr Lee?
Have they changed the name yet? They will when the humiliation sets in. Who wants to put George Bush Elementary School on their employment application? Hahaha!
I love it that he was on town for a fundraiser for Pombo, one of the worst republicans ever to come out of California, who subsequently lost…
Just Googled Stockton. 18.9% of families and 23.9% of population are below the poverty level. Study done by college study found that it is the most illiterate city in the US among cities of more than 250,000.
Anybody hear if that wastewater plant in S.F. Calf. got named for Bush.
Now c’mon. Have you EVER had to identify an elementary school as part of a job application? The lowest level of schooling that I have ever ID’d on an application is high school.
Bwahahaha! Poor Kids
I have, actually. But you know what I have only had to produce one time in my entire life?…Yep. College degree. People take your word for it for some reason.
used to see a lot of Bush-Cheney Country signs and bumperstickers – Big Ag, Richard Pombo and one Alex Spanos doncha know
sadly, Stockton now shows up as #2 only behind Detroit in ‘most miserable cities’ indexes – 16% unemployment and still one of the most highest foreclosure rates in the nation
Nope, we took a pass on that idea. Bush is not even worthy of our poo.
The brightest bulbs aren’t staying in Stockton much these days.
The school library has several copies of my Pet Goat? I assume Lefty blogs are screened from their internet.
Are Lefty blogs like the Lake available to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan or are they censored?
I don’t think that would be a job really worth dealing with. Even DoD background investigations generally only require going back 15 years or to age 18, whichever is closest.
What George doesn’t have his own song but he’s the Coolest President ever!/s
Funny, that sentence reads so much better when those words are left out, don’t you think?
Everything Repubs do is premature. Just ask their wives.
Times change, no? Bush gets a school named after him, and Obama can’t even address school kids.
For sure…. just name all effluence BUSHPOO or maybe POOBUSH??
Fixed?
So maybe naming their school after W, is kind of appropriate.
OT – e-mail from Jackie Speier today saying that she will push for a strong public option. Nice.
If you have been through Stockton you would know that it is actually fitting that this is where they chose to name a school after Bush. It has to be one of the least desireable places on earth. It also had the highest foreclosure rate in the state not long ago and one of the highest in the nation.
-retches-
Sounds about right to me. :)
and a TBogg commenter reminds us:
‘Katrina kids’ honor FEMA in song on the WH Lawn
LOL!
Quite a few MLK schools. Maybe it’s not a Black and White thing afterall.
Well, FWIW, folks were NOT rushing to honor Dr King while he was alive.
You left out the part about living in Stockton for a while. Seriously stupid people there.
Good point, as I said in my first post, Times change.
America needs to learn a general lesson from this: stop naming things after folks who are still alive. It’s embarrassing, but apparently politicians have very little shame. So we’ll need to start protecting ourselves from our own worst impulses. You just never know when someone who is still alive might go off the rails.
Signed,
Teddy (who still calls that DeeCee airport just plain “National”)
About an hour and a half ago I heard Limbaugh mention the Firedoglake blog as the source for an eeeevil leftie saying the Obama song thing was a fake controversy. He played a soundbite of Mike Stark saying it was worse that Texas schools weren’t going to teach evolution, and that these singing incidents were a distraction from real issues. Then Limbaugh talked about how the United States was going to be just like the U.S.S.R and Hitler’s Germany and Venezuela and Cuba. He left out North Korea, though. These days Limbaugh’s vocal affectations make him sound like he just left a struggling troop of actors who were performing melodramas (poorly) in rural parts of 19th century America. The last statement I heard him say was something like, “Yes, Hitler was certainly a leftist.”
Maybe im wrong but it seems to me that the righties go nuts over a song about a political rival, but think nothing of naming a school or a river, or a state after one of their own heros because one is affirmative and egalitarian, a song affirms individual affection or loyalty.The other is passive and authoritarian, you dont have a choice when the land itself is claimed in the name of______.
I for one welcome my Hamsherian overlords
Hitler used Christianity in the same manner that todays Republicans use it.
O/T
Dammit, I swore all during the Bush administration that they knew damn well where OBL was, because he was in the basement of the White House putting out statments and videos whenever it suited them politically.
Well, here we go again. Obama is about to “decide” the future course of Afganistan, and lo and behold an Osama Bin Laden tape surfaces where he “orders” NATO forces out of Afganistan.
Well, Obama no longer really has a choice now, does he???
No fucking way this random. No fucking way. The right wing of this country is still pulling his strings just like they were back in the 1980’s when he was fighting the Soviets. Goddammit.
Interesting theory, it could be illuminating to determine how may “things” are named after Reps vs. Dems. The numbers may be closer than you think. JFK comes to mind.
Shouldn’t be surprised, Obama said during the campaign that Afghanistan was the “right war”.
Uh oh. Bet the trolls will come out today.
The early shift seems to be late today. Guess they were listening to Rush.
Looking back maybe it should have been named for Cheney.
Actually, it does seem quiet today. Maybe the bridge collaped from lack of maintenance or something.
There are two places in my state where I have to end up driving on roads that have been renamed after Ronald Reagan – I always make a point to spit.
Are they dead ends?
Since Stockton is where I work and where I lived for 30 years (still work here and commute daily) I would like to say . . .
I don’t really disagree with most of the criticism . . .
It is a challenging place to live if you are a DFH, but we do have a University and a few left leaning people around here.
The school is still called Bush.
Heya Limpballs, if you’re reading this. How’s it going with that Oxycontin/Dominican Boy thang?
One relationship that is pretty well documented is the one that existed between the Bush family of Texas and the Bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia.
The road to the Sanford Orlando, FL airport bears the name of that fake cowboy.
In 2006 the average home price in the Valley Oak neighborhood of Stockton where George W. Bush Elementary is located: $450,000 Today it’s $110,000, though it’s stabilized over the last two quarters.
Stockton Valley Oak Market Trends
Stockton Is The Foreclosure Capital of America
“… Afghanistan was the “right war”.” Was. Back in 2002 it was. I wouldn’t be surprised if resources were diverted away because profiteers may have been concerned we might “win” there. A total rout of Al Qaeda and the Taliban too quickly wouldn’t be in the best interests of long term profits. Is anyone over there truly “on our side,” (whatever that means) anymore, or are people simply feeding at our trough?
we got out in late ‘03 – even the usual lefty suspects within the UOP community were keeping their heads down and their mouths shut – finding the Quakers in front of Delta College is all that kept me sane for a few years :D
Rush reads the Lake Cool can I be the next Evil Lefty he quotes? Rush for a guy married 3? times with a ton on cash how come you have no kids?
You would think that any gold diggers would feed you Big Macs until you drop and with a kid they would get everything!
Unless of course your Sterile (thank God!) or Gay?
Rush how many Clear Channel employees got laid off so Clear Channel could afford you? Mitt Romney founder of Bain Capital the guys who bought Clear Channel and you had to sell two Mansions recently in a down real estate market nobody sells now who doesn’t have too unless they like losing money.
I guess Rush that you are not the money maker Mitt thought you were?
Heya Limpballs, getting tired of Beck stealing your fire? You know he’s just a Face In The Crowd.
What about when the kids sang Christmas Songs for Reagan? Wouldn’t that be forcing Christianity on the children?
http://articles.latimes.com/19…..ald-reagan
BTW, are the wacky conservatives who are losing their cool over kids singing a song about Barack Obama, those same ones that consistently lament “political correctness” when public schools ban activities like singing Christmas carols?
So what does that now leave for educators to actually sing about ??
As another ex-Stocktonian, I concur with the others. It’s always been a sad place, lots of poverty and ignorance, run by developers, corrupt to the core. But there are LOTS of wonderful people there and many of those continue to work for peace and justice despite the difficulties. And it’s a lot harder to do that in a place like Stockton than in more comfortable cities.
We Shall Overcome…
hey, at least he had to visit California for once. And the school can always take a cue from ballparks and change the name to
EnronMerrill LynchCountrywideXe Elementary School.It was defeated. Too nice a place.
They didn’t name anything after JFK until he was murdered. Those of us who remember that day also remember that the whole nation was morning, not just the Dems. It seemed fitting to change many things to honour a man who had just given his life in service to our nation. These included putting his likeness on the .50 piece, renaming Cape Canaveral, in which JFK had invested heavily, and locally, renaming NYC’s Idlewild Airport, and Detroit’s Cadillac Square. Funny that the wingnuts tried to undo many of these once in power.
And the school uniforms could be NASCAR style!
shrub’s rethug base, in other words.
googled for a picture of the Honorable Councilman Clem Lee (he ran for council after his school board stint, I think). Now he’s running for mayor!
http://kxtv.gannett.content.mm…..e-lee1.jpg
He kinda looks like a shrub supporter, doesn’t he?
Who can forget…
17th — “KATRINA KIDS” SING FOR LAURA BUSH: Today at the White House Easter Egg Roll, dozens of children “from the stricken Gulf Coast region serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency.” To the tune of “Hey Look Me Over,” the kids from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama sang:
“Our country’s stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade.
Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!”
Nope. We lost that one. I’ve been thinking about a ballot measure to rename SF’s Bush Street to Obama Way, but I doubt we could get enough qualifying signatures.
That would have been reason to pull students from school. That absolutely is subjecting children to partisan demagoguery. How is this acceptable and President Obama telling children to stay in school not?
The conservatives are just fine if children are forced to worship at the altar of W, the torturing, lying, imbecilic war criminal.
Awww…
I moved away long ago, but that’s the town of my birth. Stockton is actually more blue than red in terms of ordinary voters, but it’s also quite corrupt in terms of political structure, and they somehow always manage to get things wrong.
An elementary school named after the consensus worst US President ever, yet genius native son Gil Evans remains unsung.
tsk, tsk…
A school in a city with high illiteracy with a school named after Dubya… that kinda works for me. That’s like the Stockton school board posting a huge warning sign to the rest of the world “Avoid visiting Stockton CA at all costs.”
Kinda like when you do when you see a confederate battle flag flying over a truck stop
What’s their mascot? The Goats? Smirking Chimps?…
A friend of mine named Gary said:
Tell me again, how was Hitler’s Germany like Cuba?
Don’t forget that the Republicans and Gen. McChrystal have also been calling for us to stay in Afghanistan. It’s the same old crap. If we stay it’s probably a waste and if we go we’re somehow kowtowing to terrorists. Garbage.
No, we always have a choice. It’s a public option see and it works like this… Seriously, it’s free will and simply not letting crazy people inform your decision-making.
BTW, I didn’t know ObL was in the basement of the WH. I thought that was Dick Cheney’s secret place?
I visited Cincinnati once when they were working on the RR highway — at one point it came to a dead end with a concrete wall and there was no warning. So, traveling along a bumpy road at about 60 and then *BAM* screeching stop. Not pleasant. [ entirely true ]
At least now I can barely remember the incident. What were we talking about? /s
Maybe they could call it the “Boosh Skul” in honor of W’s illiteracy.