False witness

So the Jerry Haas column is absolutely silly, but that's not shocking.

For starters, his concerns resemble more of a hysterical fanaticism that isn't grounded in historical reality. When you realize that President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush both addressed schoolchildren directly, encouraging them to do the same thing that Obama is planning to tell them - work hard, stay focused, set goals and respect each other - it's obvious the outrage is manufactured.

Doing the necessary research prior to writing a column is apparently too difficult for Haas. Besides, judging from his previous writings, it's obviously much easier for him to simply make stuff up.

Yet, historical inaccuracies and doom-and-gloom predictions aside, Haas is just worried about the kids ...

While our public education system is far from perfect, it at least has some local accountability. We must not allow it to slip further into a political abyss where it will be used to indoctrinate our precious children and grandchildren into shunning the principles of liberty and freedom. Do not broadcast this speech in our schools.

If Haas is so concerned with the state of public education, one wonders what he's doing to improve it.

Well, he is the Minister of Missions and Evangelism at Prince Avenue Baptist Church. Of course, PABC started its own private academy called Prince Avenue Christian School where Haas serves as a middle school football coach.

There's also the tricky matter that PABC is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention which, just a few years back, considered a resolution calling for all of its parents to withdraw their children from the public education system before deciding to merely investigate our public schools.

So, just to get this straight, Haas - somenoe who regularly espouses political beliefs under the title of someone who is 'involved in Christian ministry' - doesn't support public education and, presumably, doesn't have children enrolled in any of the local school systems ... but he's overly worried about other children being indoctrinated by some form of political ideology.

Pot meet kettle?