A Virginia middle school teacher is under fire after making his students do “opposition research” on Republican presidential candidates, according to a report.

Eighth-graders at Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County were assigned to research the backgrounds and positions of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul and find any ‘weaknesses,’ according to The Daily Caller.
The students were then required to draft a strategy paper, mapping out how to exploit those weaknesses and then research how to forward it to the Obama campaign.

‘This assignment was just creepy beyond belief — like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,’ a father of one of the students who asked for anonymity told The Daily Caller.

The teacher, Michael Denman, gave the assignment to his Civics honors class, which he broke up into four groups, with each one assigned a GOP candidate to investigate.

‘My classmates don’t actually know a lot, but a few of us tended to agree that the most recent instruction on this project just didn’t seem right,’ one of the students told the news website. Mr. Denman didn’t tell us where to find the information, just to research on them.’

John Torre, a spokesman on behalf of the Fairfax County Public School system, told The Daily Caller that students were never instructed to actually send their results to the Obama campaign.

‘Instead, the teacher simply asked his students to find out the name of the office that would receive such information,’ Torre wrote in an email to the news site.

Source

The story is already up on Fox News and as usual the commenters some surprisingly shocking stuff:

So typical of the back handed Democrats. If you are going to give a project like this, have the students examine the direction of the President and compare it to the direction of the candidate. Just another mark of their deceiving methods.

You can’t read or what? It’s clear as day. Filthy left-wing indoctrination and you got caught! Ha-ha!!

This teacher should be suspended at the very least. Besides it will give hime time to cry on his boyfriends shoulder. This is whats wrong with schools, they need to show both sides so kids can make an educated decision. But why would they get an education at a public school.

Public schools are no longer viable because they have become liberal brainwashing institutions. The Founders did not have this in mind at all. In fact they wanted them to teach Reading, Writing, “cypering”, and Bible Study. Everyone should read the book 5000 Year Leap and you will quickly realize America is in serious trouble with regard to the Constitution.
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Teacher should be indicted for another form of a hate crime
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No wonder when kids graduate a lot of them are useless members of socity who think government is there to provide for them.
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I don’t see a problem with the teacher telling his students to research HOW to send the information. HOWEVER, if he instructed them to go ahead and do so, then there might be a bit of a problem.

In general I like the idea of this assignment, I think developing a strong understanding of politics in young people is a very good thing.

It would make sense though, in the interests of fairness, that the students be asked to do the same thing with President Obama.