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Now welcome to the award-winning BestOfLeft podcast with Clips Today from This American Life,

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You may remember last fall, President Obama decided to do something that lots of other presidents had done before him,

give a short speech to the country school kids at the start of the academic year.

They had a Republican party in Florida, a man named Jim Greer, issued a statement saying that he was appalled

that President Obama would be spreading his lies and socialist ideology to school children, others chimed in.

He kicked off a little firestorm in the media.

He tried just right now, Mr. Greer, thanks for coming on.

You have put out a pretty strong statement the other day.

You said the president, you referred to him as the Pied Piper Obama.

Pied Piper is a guy who took children away and they were never seen again.

Is that what you think? I mean, really?

Well, I don't want him to take children away, but I don't want him to take their minds away either to push his agenda.

When the president finally gave his speech, what was his socialist message for the nation school children?

Put down the video games, read books, come to class, ready to work hard.

And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are watching your hands a lot,

and that you stay home from school when you don't feel well so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

After the speech, the controversy pretty much vanished overnight.

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