Politics or Comedy?

OK, I am by no means a political person. I don't claim to be democratic or republican. I vote for the candidate I feel is most suitable. I do like to follow The Carpetbagger Report. Even though this site is strongly democratic, it helps me catch up with what is going on in the political world. As a mother of five young children, I just had to share this story. The following was recently posted here:

Yesterday, I got an email from a regular reader noting that Clinton’s campaign had referenced in a press release an essay Obama wrote when he was in kindergarten, titled, “I Want To Become President.” In all sincerity, I assumed the email was a joke, parodying the intensity of the campaign season. There’s simply no way, I thought, that Clinton would reference something Obama wrote before first grade. I didn’t even make a note of it, because I assumed it was a joke.

It wasn’t. Obama, apparently as a subtle dig at Clinton, told a Boston audience yesterday, “I’m not running to fulfill some long held plans or because I think it’s open to me.” The Clinton campaign

tried to turn the tables, citing decades of examples, including these:

In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want To Be a President.’ His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga “asked her class to write an essay titled ‘My dream: What I want to be in the future.’ Senator Obama wrote ‘I want to be a President,’ she said.” [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07]

In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want to Become President.’ “Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama’s kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, ‘I Want To Become President,’ the teacher said.” [AP, 1/25/07

I found this to be quite humorous. I also enjoyed some of the comments posted on his site regarding this article and found myself laughing out loud. I will share some of them with you as well.

On December 3rd, 2007 at 4:46 pm, adam said:
Who the hell writes essay’s in kindergarten?

On December 3rd, 2007 at 6:41 pm, CalD said:

I’m thinking of suing my grade school though. We sure as heck weren’t writing essays in my kindergarten class. I feel deprived.

On December 3rd, 2007 at 8:58 pm, ERA said:
Obama was living in Jakarta at this point in his life. So, the Clinton camp shouldn’t worry. He meant President of Indonesia.

On December 4th, 2007 at 2:08 am, goatchowder said:

First of all, kindergardeners don’t talk like that.
Secondly, Obama “wrote” an essay in kindergarden? An ESSAY? A five-year-old? Are you high?
Kindergardeners can barely form letters properly, let alone spell “president”. If they write a sentence of more than 3 words, you got a genius. If they spell even one of them correctly, hooray.

On December 3rd, 2007 at 4:35 pm, The answer is orange said:

If he’d written an essay titled “I want to be a fire man,” in 1st grade would Camp HRC claim he can’t make up his mind?

And um. No offense to his teachers, but I can’t remember crap I wrote two months ago. How the hell are they able to recall what one student wrote a few decades ago?

I have to say I agree with most of these comments. I know if I asked my kindergartner to write an essay about being president, it would probably look and sound something like this:

I wont to bee pursednt bcouz i can liv in a big wit haus.

I doubt if any kindergarten student has dreams of being president so they can improve world relations, help the national deficit or improve health care. Could it be that my children are just average, and people like Obama and Clinton were just much more advanced for their age?

I doubt it!