Thank You SL

Well isn't it his job to reassure all of us peons? After all he wants my child to get it, so it is simple, he can put his money (or kids) where his mouth is. But we have already seen his hypocrisy when he put his kids in private schools instead of the DC public schools.

I actually like Ralph. I don't always agree with him, but he is honest in stating what he stands for.

Maybe because it's pointless to try to convince Conspiracy Theory Guys of anything they don't want to believe.

I went to private school too. So did my son. It's nothing personal and has nothing to do with your child. It's a preference, an individual choice that parents make. Sometimes ya gotta be a parent, not the head of the nation. When it comes to his kids, that what he is. I may be a lot of things a lot of other places but to my kid I am mom. I am sure it's that way for you too? Or do you drag your child into and through everything else you do and are in life? I rather doubt that, as I've seen your love for your child, through your posts. I'm sure you'd go through much to do what *YOU* (not other people and not the nation) decide is best for her? Shouldn't everyone have those values for their child?

Yes, but he does everything he can to deny that choice to others.

He backed down on the caffeine-vs-plutonium thing.

You're over-simplifying the situation and also insinuating that the President's family members have no rights to privacy. I would actually find Obama using his kids in such a manner to be reprehensible.

As far as the Obama kids' schooling: Think about how disruptive it would be for them to be in a public school with Secret Service swarming all over the school building. It's not about loss of confidence in the public school system; it's about not causing undue disruption to its operation.

I'm not that well up on American current events. Do you say President Obama wants your children to appear on national television while receiving medical treatment? I can quite see why you would object to that.

A little plutonium never hurt anyone . Of course I live in what was once called Nuclear City USA. The joys of having a Vice President with some land to sell when the government needs to build a nuclear refining plant.

No, but he wants them to take an untested and potentially dangerous drug. Least he could do is show us all how safe it is.

Fmr. President Bush did that with the anthrax vaccine. How convincing was that?

I'm reading Ralph Nader's newest novel right now. It's quite good. I've always liked him. he sounds like a crackpot at times, but more often than not he makes sense. At least to me.

He is wanting my child to take an untested and potentially dangerous drug, he can prove how safe it is fairly easily.

Using them on the campaign wasn't reprehensible?

They don't cause disruption in their elite private school?

At least he put his body where his mouth is.

He didn't admit he was wrong, he just backed out of the challenge.

Do you say that no tests have been carried out on this vaccine? I find it rather difficult to believe that GlaxoSmithKline, who I think produce the stuff, bring products to market without testing them, but if you tell me that's the case....

eta
I recall the late Milton Friedman complaining that medical and government bureaucratic insistence on licencing pharmaceutical products was a bad thing, but I think this is taking deregulation a bit far.

Like all Politicians, he will use his family when it suits his needs.

On the school issue, I don't see him choosing private school as an issue, that is his choice as a parent, in fact I would rather he chose whatever school he felt was best as opposed to the politically expedient one, but as Chris said, the idea that it will be less disruptive to a private scholl is nonsense. There will be just as much protection at any school the president's children attend.

Then he can get himself inoculated on national TV. I would have no problem with that.By violating their right to privacy?There's a few differences. If the parents of the other kids in attendance find the situation too disrupting, they always have the option of moving their kids to another school. Parents of public school children don't have that option.

And if the vaccine is so safe, why was Big Pharma given total legal immunity from any damage their drug may cause?

Sure they could, if Obama would quit bowing and scraping to the teacher's unions. How about taking all Federal money now spent and sending it to parents to use as vouchers at any school they so choose? How about a 100% refundable tax credit for private school tuition? Even set an upper income limit is you like. But then those kids from the ghetto and the hollows might mix with little Muffy and Biff. And there would be a lot of public school teachers out of a job.

I believe that, unfortunately, you're right. I just like to believe that Obama is a little more down-to-earth than most career politicians and thus less easily swayed by political influence and political correctness than others. But, as the saying goes, "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."It comes down to what choices anyone affected by the President's kids' presence have, and the amount of "collateral damage" caused by the President's kids presence in the form of disruptions caused by invasive Secret Service agents, news media, and Paparazzi.

I think you and I both know what would be the ultimate outcome of this. The public school system would fold, the private schools would modify their tuitions to get as much money from the government via these vouchers as they could, and the truly disadvantaged would find themselves without a school to go to. I would much rather that money be spent toward improving the public school system and make it more uniform in terms of quality of education.

I don't. His poitical pedigree points to the opposite in my opinion, and in any event, I think those traits have been effectively bred out of the species.

I'm pretty sure that didn't happen in Australia, back when I was a kid and parents had that option. But of course even the most conservative administration in Australia is somewhere on the liberal side by US standards, so I doubt it was administered in quite as laissez-faire a manner as Chris would like.

Not if it was handled properly. But our government has proven they are incapable of handling such matters with any competence, otherwise , we wouldn't even be discussing fixing the schools. Chris is right about one thing...The NEA has to be cut down to size. Their leadership is like that of most unions, corrupt and self serving. And it has created a culture amngst it's members of selfishness and disregard for the welfare of the students they are supposed to be preparing for the world. There are many fine educators out there and because of inept administartion and a Mob like union, they can't do their job properly.