Oopsy! Well, I said "silver tongued" not "well informed." Turns out silly now was down right serious a few years back when it was President George H.W. Bush talked to school children.
Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's
speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its
production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill
for an extensive hearing on the issue. ...
The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page
story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political
benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom
into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of
Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president,
it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt,
then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about
education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of
the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office
to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance. On October 17, 1991,
Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush
administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the
speech.
So, when it was a Republican president, Democrats made a federal case out of it. You would think a smart guy like Robert Gibbs would know about that.
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