From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Best Lil’ Rebel

October 18 2006

Molly Shoul

When 10-year-old Park Springs Elementary fifth-grader Molly Shoul said she wanted to perform Pink's political diatribe "Dear Mr. President" at her school's talent show this past May, it wasn't the NSA that put the kibosh on her selection; it was the principal. Park Springs' Camille Pontillo lowered the boom because of the song's explicitly political message -- let's just say it's not a love letter to George W. Bush -- and because it uses the word hell. Of course, the tune also references W.'s prior drug and alcohol abuse and asks, "What kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?" Most pointedly, it attacks Bush for his seeming callousness over lives lost in Iraq: "How do you sleep while the rest of us cry/How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?" Molly told the Sun-Sentinel she liked the song because it addresses such important topics and admonishes the president to listen to dissenting opinions. Eventually, Molly relented and agreed to perform a different song -- a hip-hop ditty about two girls fighting over a boy that Principal Pontillo apparently found more appropriate. Still, we raise a fist in salute to Molly and hope she has a long career of sticking it to the dopey people in charge.