Well, we knew the right wasn’t going to be happy about this. On Monday, at an event in Georgia, a voter asked Barack Obama about a “push” for more bilingualism in the U.S. Obama criticized the “English-only” efforts and said Americans would be better off if we spoke more than one language.
After noting the importance of foreign language classes in the schools, Obama said, “We should understand that our young people, if you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job. You are so much more employable. You can be part of international business. So we should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age, because children will actually learn a foreign language easier when they’re 5, or 6, or 7 than when they’re 46, like me.”
Far-right blogs pounced, and other conservative media outlets soon followed. Fortunately, Obama stuck to his guns today and said he was right the first time.
“The Republicans jumped on this. I said, absolutely immigrants need to learn English, but we also need to learn foreign languages,” the likely Democratic nominee said as the 1,000-plus crowd in a school gymnasium cheered. It’s a position he long has held.
“This is an example of some of the problems we get into when somebody attacks you for saying the truth, which is: We should want our children with more knowledge. We should want our children to have more skills. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a good thing. I know, because I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing,” Obama said chuckling as his audience did the same.
The Americans for Legal Immigration PAC said in a statement, “Barack Obama has stepped on a political land mine by stating Americans should be forced to learn to speak Spanish.”
That’s obviously not true.
In fact, I’m delighted to note that the AP’s Liz Sidoti added, after noting the criticism from the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, “[T]hat’s not what Obama said.” (Look! Journalism!)
In case there’s any doubt — I assume it will soon be stated as fact on right-wing radio that Barack Obama will start fining Americans who don’t speak Spanish — here’s what Obama actually said on Monday:
There’s an old joke you’ve probably heard — what do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. And what do you call someone who speaks one language? An American.
Obama thinks we’d be better off if that joke wasn’t funny anymore. I think he’s right.
Some conservatives sure do pick strange things to get excited about.