It's only YOUR tongue in your cheek!

Read that "Meeting for Worship" link and see how tortuous that must be for hyper kids! I, myself, would have probably started pounding my head on the floor after five minutes.

I'm not a big fan of Jimmy Carter, but at least you have to give him and Rosalynn props for sending Amy to a public school. Not that I ever expected Obama to do that, mind you, but was it such an unthinkable possibility? Apparently so.

Given that, I'll confess I'm missing the tone of Winant's post here. You all aren't really happy about this choice, are you? And if not, what's the joke? The Nixon reference? Maybe I'm just tired and grouchy....

Sadly, no other first family and POTUS is going to have the same security concerns as the Obamas. I'd pick a school that has some experience with this over another if it were my kids.

Letitia Baldridge is there, quote saying she is sure both girls will be "athletically inclined". I guess that statement speaks for itself and doesn't need any editorial comments.

When Amy Carter went to public school, it caused all kinds of difficulties for the Secret Service and for the school she attended.

As much as I would have liked the Obama girls to go to public school, I would have questioned their parents' sanity had they done so.

Having known girls who attended Georgetown Day and Sidwell Friends, I've been rooting for Sidwell Friends. The snobbery levels are still relatively high, but the Friends girls that I knew were polite and aware of their privilege. They never seemed to have the aura of entitlement that girls from Cathedral or Georgetown Day exuded.

I'd rather have them taught noblesse oblige than "I deserve the best because my father's President."

Quakers are cool!

I was so happy when I saw the girls were going to a Friends school!

Quakers are the best educators. Enlightened - egalitarian - honoring the deepest, most important human values and ideals.

Are there really a lot of Quaker-trainees here at Salon?

I am Quaker-trained too.

I went to Quaker elementary, and college.

I loved Meeting. It's very centering. It's brilliant.

That's indeed awesome that the Obama girls are going there!

Say what you will about Brother Jeremiah and the south side of Chicago, I suspect even his zanniest sermons were more edifying that the droll suburban pacifism pounded out by this latter-day Quaker institution. If the girls had stayed in Hyde Park, they could have ended up way left, with a kooky set of friends . . . and a soul. Chicago is a great town, warts and all. Maybe they'll still get back from time to time. I hope so, for the kids' sake.

What, no public school for the Obama girls?

How much is the tuition, 25K?

I'm glad he can afford it.

Can I get a voucher to get my kid out of the inner-city school too?

Here in my local meeting for worship the two Quaker kids who attended the local Quaker school were both expelled. If you look at the history of The Religious Society of Friends you will find plenty of passion. Will the two kids be sober-minded ascetics or passionate? More importantly will Obama be a sober-minded ascetic ruler of the people or a passionate servant of the people?

I know as a lefty I'm supposed to love the public schools and hate the private schools, but why shouldn't the Obamas want to send their kids to private school? Isn't Sidwell Friends supposed to be pretty good? Should he have turned down Punahou School because it's private, just to make a statement about social justice and go to a crappy Hawaiian public school? I say, let's dismount from the high horse on this issue.

It would be crazy for the Obamas to risk their children's safety in the DC public schools, such as they are now, and use their little girls to make some sort of political concession to pubic education. The president's children are vulnerable targets; they had to pick a school where the Secret Service would have the ability to keep them safe without huge disruption. And their kids deserve to be kept safe from harm.

I'm very confident that the Obama's will work just as hard for education and for improving the public schools as they promised they would, regardless of where their children are.

Other posters are right that Mr. Obama cannot be expected to send his kids to a dangerous, underperforming urban school. Jane Byrne, the old mayor of Chicago, lived for a time in the Cabrini Green housing project to make a point of solidarity with the poor. Doing so required heavy armed guards, and solved nothing - other than perhaps scaring the daylights out of the mayor and causing her to be extra thankful for her gold coast condo. :) The projects have since been torn down to make way for Mayor Daley's gargantuan olympic dream city of the future. The poor were reportedly given vouchers to move to my fair state of Indiana, where crime and drug violence recently shot up in Lake County. Thanks, Mr. Mayor!

But anyway, back to Mr. Obama. I would give the guy a break. He needs to do right by his kids. This is probably the best decision.

I think you know that - but it seems not all your readers do.

The Quakers I've known have been the most caring, open, creative people I've known.

And I've met a lot of Quakers, and people who are Quaker-trained, or Quaker-like (unofficial participants in Quaker-founded schools, camps, communities, meetings, etc.).

Tupac Shakur Middle School?

One of my friend's grandparents were Quaker educators.

During the depression, her grandmother would dress like a man, so they could both go together to the reservations and teach literacy to the Native Americans.

Their family were also the ones to come up with the game Monopoly, but being Quakers, they weren't materialstic about getting credit for it.

But they're not ascetic! More bohemian than anything. Educators! Artists!