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When we first saw a copy of the now-viral video of young schoolkids singing the praises of President Barack Obama on Sept. 24 ("Hooray, Mr. President, we honor your great plans/To make this country's economy No. 1 again!"), we looked at our watches to see how long it would take for Republican leaders to react.
Turned out, not long.
The following morning, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele sent out a blast e-mail with a link to the video and a plea for donations to the RNC to "fight this leftist propaganda and elect more Republicans this year and next."
The issue also made the rounds on political radio and TV talk shows. Fox News' Sean Hannity and Kimberly Guilfoyle talked about whether Hannity's head would spontaneously combust or simply explode if his kid had been among those at the school.
"That's not too creepy," Fox News host Glenn Beck said sarcastically on his Sept. 24 show after showing a clip of the video. "Did anybody in the room stop and think for a second, 'Wait a minute. I really wouldn't want my kids chanting a song about George W. Bush, so maybe I shouldn't do it with this one?'"
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By Friday, the number of people who had viewed the video neared half a million.
In his e-mail, Steele said he was so stunned and outraged by the video, he felt the need to circulate it immediately.
"In the video, impressionable youngsters at a public school in New Jersey, most of whom are no more than six or seven years old, have been instructed to sing the praises of 'Barack Hussein Obama,'" Steele wrote.
"Friend, this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America."
You can argue whether or not Steele laid the political rhetoric on a little too thick.
The fact we wanted to check was the question that immediately popped into our head when we saw the video, "Did this really happen at a public school?"
Click here for our full examination of Steele's comment.
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