If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well, you can be pretty sure that it's probably a duck.

Since taking office, President Barack Obama has made it quite clear that he is going to be a different kind of president.

During the campaign, questions were raised about the kind of people Obama hung around with.  An unscripted conversation with Joe the Plumber in Ohio revealed that Obama wanted to share the wealth by taking from the rich and giving to the poor.  A Florida TV station interviewed his running mate, then Senator Joe  Biden, who was asked if he was familiar with the quote, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", a quote from Marx, the founder of modern Communism.  Biden walked out of the interview and the station was blacklisted by the Obama campaign.  Some viewed that as a harbinger of things to come.

Less than a month after taking office, President Obama fired the CEO of General Motors and installed his own puppet into that office, effectively taking over the auto giant.  A number of commercials for mortgage refinancing services refer to the president as having ordered lenders to lend to those who qualify.

What business does the president of the United States have in ordering businesses around?  Don't they have a board of directors and stockholders to do that?

Throughout this episode, Obama told us that he didn't want to run the auto business.  OK, if that's true, then why is he?

Many of us think Ronald Reagan was right when he said, "Government isn't the solution to the problem, government is the problem."

And do you remember the spectacle of the Big Three Automakers groveling for a government bailout?  For their first trip to Washington they flew on private jets.  They were blasted by a Congress that recently tried to buy a fleet of private jets for themselves.  Can anyone spell hypocrisy?

You might also remember that one of the first things he wanted to do as president was to create a youth service corps which would be as strong as the military and as well funded to defend us here at home.  Defend us from what, he did not say.

This president has also appointed 43 "czars" to advise him on various areas, some overlapping the responsibilities of Cabinet appointees.  These "czars" are not subject to Senate confirmation and are accountable to no one but Obama.  Many of these "czars" are known Communists or Communist sympathizers, or just plain Chicago thugs.

And consider the health care plan he wants to saddle us with.  Much of this looks like "enabling legislation", in which Congress sets the broad objective, creates the agency, and gives that agency a virtual "blank check" to write its own rules to get the job done.  This is why you see such phrases, "Subject to the approval of the Commissioner..."  Who is the Commissioner?  Quite simply a bureaucrat who hasn't been appointed yet, who will have no accountability to you whatsoever.  He or she will write the rules which decide how you and your loved ones will be cared for from a health standpoint.  And you will have no say whatsoever.  Is this still the United States of America or what?

Remember what our parents told us, "Tell us who your company is and I'll tell you what you are"?  These days that's good advice, but apparently Obama has been given a pass over some of the questionable characters he's hung around with.

Barack Obama apparently has a high opinion of himself.  His speech accepting the Democrat nomination in Denver was preceded by his grand entrance onto a set borrowed from Brittany Spears, showing the then candidate Obama descending from the clouds like a god.  If you think that he had no input to that decision whatever, then I've got some ocean front property in Phoenix I'd like to talk to you about.

A number of his followers and supporters have referred to him as, "The Messiah", or, "The Chosen One".  Remember the various mock-ups that showed Obama on a donkey on Palm Sunday triumphantly entering Washington?  While these things were done by his supporters over whom Obama had little or no control, he never distanced himself from such activity.  Had the same kind of hero worship accompanied the election or re-election of George W. Bush, you can be sure that he would have distanced himself from any claims by anyone that he (Bush) was the Messiah.

That title belongs to One and only One Person.  No one else had better mess with it.

Now consider some of the things that Obama has done which tacitly encourage such hero worship.  When he delivered a speech on the economy at Georgetown University, the White House insisted that any and all references to Jesus within camera range, be covered up, the first and only such request by any president in our history.  While the White House defends the action by saying it wanted a simple backdrop of flags, pipe and drape for the speech, much like any other policy speech, we the people aren't buying it.

And here is the photo to prove it.  The photo at right shows the same area without the White House backdrop.

Please notice the black triangle just above and behind the president.  This black area covers an "IHS" symbol which to Catholics represents Jesus because IHS are the first three letters of the Name of Jesus in Greek.  You can see the IHS symbol with the small cross above it in the photo at right.  This symbol is common in Catholic churches.

Factcheck.org reports that according to Georgetown University spokeswoman Julie Green Bataille, the university honored the White House staff’s request to cover all of the signage and symbols behind Gaston Hall stage. The White House wanted a simple backdrop of flags and pipe and drape for the speech, consistent with what they’ve done for other policy speeches.

However, these explanations don't square with the public.   Many are looking at the totality of the Obama record and seeing frightening parallells with another head of state:  Adolf Hitler. Hitler also wanted to create a youth service corps when he was elected Chancellor of Germany.  President Obama's course is astoundingly similar to Hitler's.

And now the president wants us to trust him to educate (or is that indoctrinate) our kids. He is scheduled to address schoolkids Tuesday following Labor Day, an event which will be broadcast via the White House web site.  This is an address that has many parents up in arms.  If he merely wanted to encourage kids to study hard, he could do that in many other ways that would include their parents.  However, parents will be conspicuous by their absence.

Presidents have addressed students before.  One remembers President Reagan addressing students directly following the explosion of the shuttle Challenger, which they watched as part of the Teacher in Space program.  Reagan assured students that everything was under control, and that the astronauts and the teacher were heroes.

George H. W. Bush, (Bush 41) also addressed students in 1991.  In a speech broadcast live from a Washington middle school, the elder Bush encouraged students to study hard and avoid drugs, hardly a partisan message.  But Democrats criticized the speech as using the Department of Education as a "paid political announcement".  

And who can forget that President George W. Bush was in a classroom in Florida when he was interrupted with news of the terrorist attacks of 9-11?

What's different about this time around is the politics surrounding it.   Lesson plans reveal some disturbing questions being asked students at various grade levels.  One assignment related to this speech is especially troubling.  Students are required to write a letter to themselves describing how they can help President Obama.  It's as though President Obama is turning the words of JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", into, "Ask not what Obama can do for you, ask what you can do for Obama."

And many parents are opting to keep their kids at home on Tuesday.  Some  parents may decide to accompany their children to classes for the entire school day, however, some school districts may not allow that.   These parents want their kids educated, not indoctrinated.

And if the speech, and the lesson plans that accompany it, are revised, once actually delivered, to include none of the material that was criticized, what are we to think then?  Of course, one would suspect the White House to play down any of these aforementioned fears as right-wing propaganda, similar to the criticism leveled against the Martin Scorsee film, The Last Temptation of Christ.  Remember that Scorsee claimed that right-wing extremists obtained a copy of a pre-edited script. Is it possible that the White House would make the same claim?

Is this a deliberate attempt by the White House to squash any conservative opposition to its policies by making its critics look like fools?  Are we seeing the real speech--or has this one been doctored once the criticism started?  We just don't know with this White House.

It will also be interesting to watch whether any school district imposes any sort of penalty for non-attendance, such as an unexcused absence with the built in consequences. One wonders if a future test, like a semester exam or mid-term, once the hub-bub has died down,  in subjects like history or government will contain questions based on the speech that a number of students did not hear because their parents kept them home.  A test like this could adversely affect their grade.  Or will the school district simply record the speech and play it back at some undisclosed time during either a history or government class or a school assembly program, thus circumventing the parents' wishes and forcing all students to hear it despite parental objections.  Will this issue start a war between parents and educators, or will it simply intensify a war which already exists?  And if a "harmless" version of this speech and the lesson plans actually emerge, will parents be categorized as opposing any positive ideals mentioned in the speech bythe president?  We don't know.  We just can't trust this guy in the White House.  And that's the tragic fact.

And what are we to say about a subsequent address to students by this president?  Will these genuine fears and concerns be addressed or will this be morphed into another episode of the boy who cried, "Wolf"?  Will the earlier lesson plans be looked at as an honest mistake, or is the White House deliberately using this tactic as a tool to silence critics for subsequent addresses to students by this president, who will do exactly what his critics feared in subsequent addresses?

Mr. President, We the People don't trust you.  When you campaigned for this office, you promised us an end to politics as usual. We also gave you a huge majority to work with.  You have turned that into a license to ram bills through Congress that you want and bipartisanship be damned.  Your path is dangerously similar to another head of state, Adolf Hitler.  You got an earful during the health care townhalls.  Keep this up and you're certain to get another earful over this fiasco.  Mr. President, before you're even considered worthy to address the nation's schoolchildren, you need to clean up your act.  It's time to lead by example.

Jesus told us, "By their fruits we shall know them".  Thusfar, Barack Obama's fruits have been rotten to the core and they show no sign of improving anytime soon.

Meanwhile, we the people are praying for a crop failure.

President Obama at Georgetown University.   Apr 15, 2009

Gaston Hall at Georgetown University where the President spoke.

in light of His coming