Has the country gone berserk?

Are we really this nuts?

Just how many people bought into the craziness about President Obama's speech to school children?

And how much worse can this anti-Obama movement get?

The president of the United States wants to encourage the nation's students to work hard, stay in school, and make their parents proud - and he is accused of trying to brainwash children. Of peddling a socialist agenda.

Apparently the president thought he had a message that might touch children, particularly poor children. As examples, he used not only his own life story but also those of current students who have overcome the kinds of obstacles that many poor children face. Those young people, he told students in his televised address today, "aren't any different than you."

"You need to work hard," he said. "You can't drop out of school," he said. "What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of America."

"Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up," he said.

This is the message that terrified some parents. This is the message they refused to let their children watch. This is the message that had people calling radio programs and writing letters accusing the president of being just like North Korea's Kim Jong-il.

Obama's speech was just the latest target for the rabid Obama critics and the outfits feeding the frenzy. When the bizarre attacks against Obama first started making the news, it was tempting to dismiss them as the rantings of a few conspiracy theorists. But the attacks are becoming increasingly crazy, and increasingly scary.

The Republicans in Congress, men and women who should have applauded the president's wish to speak to the nation's children, have been silent - smiling, I have to assume, as the nutty firestorm built. They ought to be ashamed. And we ought to hold them accountable.