A friend just reminded me about another one of those instances where a politician embarrassed himself (I thought) with a visit to a classroom. I always assume they do them because handlers have told them it scores big with voters, and it's safer than facing a Press Corps that sometimes (admittedly, not often but sometimes) asks tough questions. But it's not always safer, as Dan Quayle discovered when he wound up judging a spelling contest where "potato" was one of the words. Then there was this one…
One day during the term of President Reagan it somehow came out that the Chief Exec was not much of a church-goer. He often extolled the necessity of regular worship in his speeches but rarely spent his own Sunday listening to sermons. No one really cared much if he did or he didn't attend. That was his business. But a lot of folks got momentarily irate because of the seeming hypocrisy, and because the White House started claiming a church-going frequency for Mr. Reagan that reporters knew was just not so. Asked about it, the President finally admitted he wasn't going as often as his aides insisted and said, "I haven't bothered to check on their [Democrats'] attendance, but I think they must be well aware of why I have not been attending. And frankly, I miss it very much. But I represent too much of a threat to too many other people for me to be able to go to church."
During this period, Reagan was making weekly visits to elementary schools. In one, a kid asked the president why he didn't go to church and our Chief Exec explained about being a threat to those around him. And supposedly (I'm not sure I believe this part), the kid then said, "So what are you doing here?"
Whether a kid asked that or not, it was a good question. If it was too dangerous for Reagan to go to church, why was he going to all those classrooms?