During my lifetime, I have heard complaints from folks on the right that I am not patriotic because I protested the Vietnam war, questioned both Presidents Bush on the wars in Iraq and wondered if we are ruining our standing as a moral country with our renditions and interrogation methods. 

I am not a big supporter of the most of the Republican presidents that have served during my lifetime but I support our democracy. 

Having commuted to Dubai from the United States most of the last year I see how having one inherited ruler and the lack of any real "buy-in" from the populace can wreck a country. We have one president and that president is elected by the people. The majority speaks even if almost half of the country doesn't like the choice. The president is our leader for four years. We are a UNITED states. For all these reasons, the reaction that we have seen in the past few days to the announcement that President Obama intends to address school children is quite shocking. 

In the '50s and early '60s when the president of the United States had something big to say or there was an event such as the first manned space launch we all gathered in the gym and watched the event together on a black and white television. No one thought it was propaganda, no one thought it was Democratic or Republican, it was American. 

It is a sorry state of affairs when a president can't address school kids to ask that they participate in our democracy. It is the result of entrenched political wrangling on Capitol Hill when the talking points conservatives put out say that Obama is such an egotist that he is trying to brainwash the entire young generation. It is the cancer of cynicism that Obama's critics think that he is going to enlist young school children to get Mommy and Daddy to call their member of Congress to promote his version of health care or cap-and-trade. 

What is wrong with giving our children a sense that we are united, that we operate as one country and that we have a leader who wants to talk to them?  Get real, right wing and be the kind  Americans that you think the left isn't, support our president even if you disagree with his policies.