Of President Obama’s back-to-school speech to the kiddies, Jay Nordlinger writes,

it’s also a little . . . creepy. A little un-republican. A little — just a little — Dear Leader-ish. Immodest. George Washington would never have done such a thing, is my guess; doubt Lincoln would have either . . .”

Perhaps. But it strikes me as infinitely less “Dear Leaderish” and certainly less “immodest” than President Bush’s infamous carrier landing/”Mission Accomplished” speech on May Day, 2003. History, or at least Google, does not record Nordlinger’s comments on that day. My theory is that he was too overcome with emotion. I doubt that he was contemplating how “Dear Leaderish” it made the president look, or thinking it “immodest.”