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Joseph Cao Defends Obama's Right to Address School Children

To the left. To the left. Everything he owns in a box to the left. Louisiana Republican Congressman Joseph Cao continues to distance himself from the base of the Republican party. As the GOP extremists were criticizing President Obama's speech to schoolchildren, more "moderate" Republican voices were voicing support for the President. Cao jumped on to this bandwagon. Here's a short press release he just sent out:

Washington, D.C., Sep 8 
Tonight, Congressman Anh "Joseph" Cao (LA-2) spoke on the House floor in defense of President Obama’s speech to school children in Central Florida this morning. 

Last week’s announcement of the President’s back-to-school speech sparked controversy from those who felt the speech would be partisan and politically divisive. 

Cao said: “The President’s address to students this morning promoted students setting high standards, supporting our teachers and principals, and reforming our schools. He encouraged students to take advantage of educational opportunities for successful careers and the opportunities to achieve the American dream. As elected officials and leaders in our communities, I hope we can learn to make the distinction between our disagreements with the man in the oval office and our history of respecting the office itself."

As we've noted before, Cao is up for re-election in LA-02, a heavily Democratic district and Cao has been trying to buck his party in a move to the middle. But Cao will have to do more than just give nice speeches from the House floor. He's going to have to vote for his constituents as well, and that includes the upcoming healthcare, immigration, environmental and education bills.

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GerarldineH on Wed, 09/09/2009 - 23:07

There is really no harm in at least showing some importance for our students, that is why the President had his speech. But the Obama school speech stirred up a lot of controversy among conservatives, especially the type that love to scream at the top of their lungs over nothing.  That's more or less what is controversial about the Obama school speech – nothing.  It's largely supposed to be inspirational, and encourage children to stick with education and not to give up or drop out if the going gets tough.  Shocking, we know – children getting educations – we might start having more people acting all smart and stuff.  The speech had no socialist or fascist overtones, and people that were protesting the Obama school speech might want to find a money lender to go do something, or maybe a hobby.

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