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Florida GOP Chair on Obama's Speech to Students: "It's a Good Speech, I'll Let My Kids Watch"

September 07, 2009 3:20 PM

ABC News' Steven Portnoy reports: The Florida Republican party chairman who last week accused the president of trying to “indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda” now says he’ll let his children watch what he calls a “good speech,” one the president “should give.”

“It’s a good speech,” Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer said Monday. “It encourages kids to stay in school and the importance of education and I think that’s what a president should do when they’re gonna talk to students across the country.”

In a telephone interview as he headed to Tallahassee for a round of TV interviews ahead of tonight’s FSU-Miami football game, Greer said the White House made “changes” to teacher prep materials – and the speech itself – as a result of the political pressure he applied.

“The speech that’s out today is one that he should give, and I’m pleased to see that the White House has made changes to what was gonna happen.”

Despite his conciliatory tone today, Greer says he has no regrets for issuing a statement last Tuesday, in which he said he was “absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.” The statement also accused the president of “bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.”

Now that he’s read the text of the speech, Greer says he’ll gladly let his own children watch it – if their school chooses to participate.

“The speech that [Obama’s] gonna give tomorrow to students I really don’t find to be a problem. I just wish the White House had done things differently and not tried to send out lesson plans that would have pushed teachers to lead students in a direction that maybe I and many other parents would not like students to be led in.”

“This was clearly moving in a direction that would have not been satisfactory to me as a parent, and I know many other parents across this country. The White House has changed, the Department of Education took it all out, but when they submitted it, when they sent it out, when they created those lesson plans – the objections from me, the statement from me, and the objections from many other parents was warranted and they should’ve thought about it more carefully before they tried it.”