I fully understand how the somewhat-creepy cult of personality that has been built up around Barack Obama can throw a shadow over even the most innocuous events involving the president. That said, how much am I worried about the now notorious back-to-school speech that the president is planning to make? Not so much. In fact, not at all (although it wasn’t a bad thing that the wording about “helping the president” was changed). Somehow I think that Reason’s David Harsanyi feels the same way:

If your child is incapable of handling a 20-minute haranguing from a self-important public servant, he will be tragically unprepared for the new world. (Whom do you think he will be dealing with when he needs that hip replacement in 60 years?)
Even if you oppose the president on a political level, it is empirically evident that the more one hears his homilies the less inclined one is to trust him. And Obama’s penchants to lecture us endlessly, to be the center of attention endlessly and to saturate the airwaves and national conversation are clear indications that he believes government is the answer to every societal, religious, economic, and cultural question we face. Why should your kids be immune? . . .
Why should we deny that he can elevate our schoolchildren from the abyss so they finally, after decades of neglect, can learn again? And who better to dictate the lesson plan than the president’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, a man who left Chicago’s school district with a meager 40 percent dropout rate?
Honestly, if I’m going to be badgered and browbeaten by the president every day, kids should suffer a bit, as well.

Nicely put.