Michael Gaynor
Michelle Obama: wrong for first lady
By Michael Gaynor
"There is still a lot of hard work that we as a country need to do. They can't look to any one individual, whether it's Barack or it's the next new hope that's going to appear to be that savior. And I would just hate for people to sort of see this potential and think: Oh, now I can rest easy because Barack Obama is going to fix things. It doesn't work that way."
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is smart, sincere and...scary.
"The lens through which you choose to view your community defines the possibilities. If you can only see the deficits, it's very difficult to understand what you can do and how you can benefit as a company."
So Michelle, Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, said, sensibly, on September 27, 2006, in an address titled "Creating Relationships between Business and Community" and delivered at the 2006 Best Bosses Conference & Celebration.
But, when it came to America, Michelle said she had only seen deficits for decades, until her rookie United States Senator husband's campaign for the Democrat 2008 presidential nomination was well received.
Surely a prospective First Lady should be less self-obsessed and should have taken her own advice and "chosen" to see more than America's deficits.
Sadly, on February 18, 2008, Michelle somberly admitted that when it came to America, she had not seen anything to be really proud of during her adult life (which includes the Reagan years, the Bush 41 years, the Clinton years and the Bush 43 years).
Michelle did not mispeak and she was not misquoted.
The community that Michelle apparently sees in such a way that she CAN understand and benefit it, using her own sensible standard, seems to be limited to the south side of Chicago, not all the whole United States of America.
Or perhaps just America's blacks: "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really didn't belong." Excerpt from introduction to Michelle's sociology thesis, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community."
Michelle Obama, February 18, 2008: "For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."
Immediate unfavorable reaction to that profoundly personal but pathetically unpatriotic pronouncement prompted Michelle to restate in this it's-all-about-Michelle way: ""For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country ... not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
Give Michelle credit for candor, but her attitude is not fitting for a First Lady.
New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd: "I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal — comic routine that rests on the presumption that we see him as a god.... But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam J.F.K. into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffins. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk this mystique?"
It's not surprising that The New York Times preferred that bunk about Barack be believed, but, for America's sake, Barack better be debunked.
Ironically, Michelle did some debunking of Barack herself, back in 2005!
In an interview with Jeff Zeleny published in the Chicago Tribune on Christmas Eve 2005 (when rookie United States Senator Barack was not generally considered a serious contender for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2008), Michelle warned that Barack is NOT a savior and against unrealistic expectations:
"Q. As his career progresses, what concerns you?
"A. I would constantly tamp down expectations because they're not realistic. There is still a lot of hard work that we as a country need to do. They can't look to any one individual, whether it's Barack or it's the next new hope that's going to appear to be that savior. And I would just hate for people to sort of see this potential and think: Oh, now I can rest easy because Barack Obama is going to fix things. It doesn't work that way."
THAT was the truth!
Now Michelle has debunked a myth about herself, by solemnly stating in public that for the first time in her adult life, she's proud of America, but only because it's receptive to Barack's hope message.
Michelle became 44 on January 17, 2008.
So she was an adult when Ronald Reagan became President, when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Soviet Union collapsed, when President Reagan appointed the first woman to the United States Supreme Court, etc.
Incidentally, Michelle's own board of director service undercuts Barack's criticism of Hillary Clinton during one of their debates thus year for serving on the board of directors of Wal-Mart.
Michelle had served as a salaried board member of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE: THS), ironically, a major Wal-Mart supplier.
Michelle had cut ties immediately after her husband made comments critical of Wal-Mart at an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, New Jersey, on May 14, 2007, but Hillary had cut her Wal-Mart ties long before that and if it was okay for Michelle, a black female attorney, why not white female attorney Hillary, Barack?
Michelle's self-confidence is immense.
Michelle: "I guarantee you, if I could talk to everybody in this state, they would vote for Barack Obama. I'm pretty convincing."
But Michelle cleverly asks voters to dream about "change," not think about reality.
Michelle: "Just dream. If you reach into your hearts and act without fear, we can do something special."
But the election of a rookie Senator who earned National Journal's designation as most liberal United States Senator and supports infanticide and his cousin, Kenyan radical and presidential aspirant Raili Odinga is a nightmare that should be feared.
In July 2007, Vanity Fair magazine listed Michelle among "10 of the World's Best Dressed People."
America needs much more from a First Lady than a great wardrobe.
© Michael Gaynor
"There is still a lot of hard work that we as a country need to do. They can't look to any one individual, whether it's Barack or it's the next new hope that's going to appear to be that savior. And I would just hate for people to sort of see this potential and think: Oh, now I can rest easy because Barack Obama is going to fix things. It doesn't work that way."
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is smart, sincere and...scary.
"The lens through which you choose to view your community defines the possibilities. If you can only see the deficits, it's very difficult to understand what you can do and how you can benefit as a company."
So Michelle, Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, said, sensibly, on September 27, 2006, in an address titled "Creating Relationships between Business and Community" and delivered at the 2006 Best Bosses Conference & Celebration.
But, when it came to America, Michelle said she had only seen deficits for decades, until her rookie United States Senator husband's campaign for the Democrat 2008 presidential nomination was well received.
Surely a prospective First Lady should be less self-obsessed and should have taken her own advice and "chosen" to see more than America's deficits.
Sadly, on February 18, 2008, Michelle somberly admitted that when it came to America, she had not seen anything to be really proud of during her adult life (which includes the Reagan years, the Bush 41 years, the Clinton years and the Bush 43 years).
Michelle did not mispeak and she was not misquoted.
The community that Michelle apparently sees in such a way that she CAN understand and benefit it, using her own sensible standard, seems to be limited to the south side of Chicago, not all the whole United States of America.
Or perhaps just America's blacks: "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really didn't belong." Excerpt from introduction to Michelle's sociology thesis, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community."
Michelle Obama, February 18, 2008: "For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."
Immediate unfavorable reaction to that profoundly personal but pathetically unpatriotic pronouncement prompted Michelle to restate in this it's-all-about-Michelle way: ""For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country ... not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
Give Michelle credit for candor, but her attitude is not fitting for a First Lady.
New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd: "I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal — comic routine that rests on the presumption that we see him as a god.... But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam J.F.K. into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffins. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk this mystique?"
It's not surprising that The New York Times preferred that bunk about Barack be believed, but, for America's sake, Barack better be debunked.
Ironically, Michelle did some debunking of Barack herself, back in 2005!
In an interview with Jeff Zeleny published in the Chicago Tribune on Christmas Eve 2005 (when rookie United States Senator Barack was not generally considered a serious contender for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2008), Michelle warned that Barack is NOT a savior and against unrealistic expectations:
"Q. As his career progresses, what concerns you?
"A. I would constantly tamp down expectations because they're not realistic. There is still a lot of hard work that we as a country need to do. They can't look to any one individual, whether it's Barack or it's the next new hope that's going to appear to be that savior. And I would just hate for people to sort of see this potential and think: Oh, now I can rest easy because Barack Obama is going to fix things. It doesn't work that way."
THAT was the truth!
Now Michelle has debunked a myth about herself, by solemnly stating in public that for the first time in her adult life, she's proud of America, but only because it's receptive to Barack's hope message.
Michelle became 44 on January 17, 2008.
So she was an adult when Ronald Reagan became President, when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Soviet Union collapsed, when President Reagan appointed the first woman to the United States Supreme Court, etc.
Incidentally, Michelle's own board of director service undercuts Barack's criticism of Hillary Clinton during one of their debates thus year for serving on the board of directors of Wal-Mart.
Michelle had served as a salaried board member of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE: THS), ironically, a major Wal-Mart supplier.
Michelle had cut ties immediately after her husband made comments critical of Wal-Mart at an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, New Jersey, on May 14, 2007, but Hillary had cut her Wal-Mart ties long before that and if it was okay for Michelle, a black female attorney, why not white female attorney Hillary, Barack?
Michelle's self-confidence is immense.
Michelle: "I guarantee you, if I could talk to everybody in this state, they would vote for Barack Obama. I'm pretty convincing."
But Michelle cleverly asks voters to dream about "change," not think about reality.
Michelle: "Just dream. If you reach into your hearts and act without fear, we can do something special."
But the election of a rookie Senator who earned National Journal's designation as most liberal United States Senator and supports infanticide and his cousin, Kenyan radical and presidential aspirant Raili Odinga is a nightmare that should be feared.
In July 2007, Vanity Fair magazine listed Michelle among "10 of the World's Best Dressed People."
America needs much more from a First Lady than a great wardrobe.
© Michael Gaynor
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