Obama picking on Xbox again |
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President Obama's prepared remarks to the nation's schoolchildren, scheduled to be delivered Tuesday, were released in written form today so that parents could review them and make sure he wouldn't be saying anything they didn't want their kids to hear. The release was also meant to placate Obama's opponents, who have expressed concern that the speech would give him an unfair opportunity to advance a political agenda.
But after seeing the text, maybe Microsoft should be the one objecting.
"Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility. I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn," Obama will say, according to the text of the speech. "I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox."
Hey, what about the Nintendo Wii?
In all seriousness, in some ways it's a good thing when your product becomes so synonymous with a particular activity that the President of the United States refers to it by name when he really means video games in general. It's a sign of success. Had George W. Bush given the same speech shortly after taking office, he no doubt would have told kids not to spend every waking hour in front of the PlayStation.
On the other hand, here we have the President of the United States specifically telling one of the company's key groups of customers not to spend so much time using its product. Kinda the opposite of an endorsement.
As Obama indicates in the Tuesday speech, it's not the first time he has referred to the Xbox in this way.
"For our kids to excel, we have to accept our responsibility to help them learn," he said in a July speech. "That means putting away the Xbox — putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences and reading to our children and helping them with their homework.
Microsoft released this statement to the AP at the time: “We agree with President Obama that it’s a time for families to work together so that kids use media in ways that are safe, healthy and balanced. Xbox 360 is the only console gaming system that has a timer feature allowing parents to set time limits for their kids, as well as parent controls to enable parents to set limits on what their kids are playing and watching.”
Obama's speech is scheduled for 9 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday. The webcast will be available here.
Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.
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