You know I'm gonna' have to go with Obama on this one.

I should preface this by saying that I think it was stupid for him to say that our children should learn to speak Spanish. That suggests that he think immigrants only come from Spanish speaking countries.

But, he raises an excellent point. Most Europeans I've met do speak more than one language and, almost invariably, one of those languages is English. Europeans can come here and get through the day pretty readily. An American in Portugal or France, let's say, would have a far more difficult time.

I travel a lot in Canada on business. In areas like Montreal and Quebec City, French is the "first language". From a business perspective, it would benefit me to be able to speak French. I can speak some, but want to be more proficient. Hence, my Rosetta Stone is on the way.

I agree with Obama that speaking more than language is a good thing, and I wonder why so many Americans bristle at the suggestion...