Now that Barack Obama has pretty much wrapped up the nomination, it's time to raise a question that lots of people have been talking about privately but not publicly. Is it possible that Michelle Obama is the force behind Barack Obama's refusal to embrace traditional patriotic symbols? Could Obama's wife be largely responsible for the candidate's damaging associations with crackpot race-baiters like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Reverend Michael Pfleger? In sum, could Obama's wife be a large part of his political problem?
Obama himself seems, at least on the surface, relatively free of the kind of corrosive racial resentment that is so common among African American activists of our day. This resentment is especially puzzling as it often comes from people who, far from being victims, have actually enjoyed benefits and privileges that they would probably never get if they happened to be white.
Consider the case of Michelle Obama. She was raised in a two-parent, middle-class family. She applied to one of America's top universities, Princeton, and was admitted. Of this experience, Michelle says on the stump, "All my life I have confronted people who had a certain expectation of me. Every step of the way, there has been people telling me what I couldn't do. When I applied to Princeton, they said: you can't go there, your test scores aren't high enough."
Which is all very moving, except that her test scores weren't high enough. Michelle Obama is part of the affirmative action generation of above-average but far-from-stellar performers who were granted preferential admission to America's most elite institutions.
Michelle notes that she graduated with honors in her major. Again, the problem is that her undergraduate thesis is on the web. You might expect that she wrote about Shakespeare's sonnets or the political evolution of W.E.B. Du Bois. Well, no. Essentially Michelle Obama wrote about the problems of being a black woman at an Ivy League university.
Here is a typical passage: "By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight."
Alas, the grammar is all wrong here. More than once, the tenses are garbled. People are ignorant "of" the plight of the lower class, not ignorant "to" their plight. And"desparation" should be spelled "desperation." To wreak so much havoc on the English language in one sentence, without conveying anything of substance, is perhaps deserving of a prize. Is this what her professors were thinking when they granted her honors? Whatever the Obamorons say, let's remember that that these are not mere typos; they reflect an estranged relationship to the English language. Moreover they appear not in a daily blog but in a thesis that is supposed to reflect the culmination of one's college career.
Subsequently Michelle went on to further appointments and even managed to cash in big time on her skin color and marriage to Barack Obama. She was hired by the University of Chicago hospitals to run "programs for community relations, neighborhood outrecah, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting." Here her salary was $400,000 a year.
One might expect that the reaction of someone who gets so many privileges to be grateful to a society that makes them possible. But no. Michelle Obama thinks that her very success is an example of white oppression. By a bizarre twist of logic, she converts "you're not good enough, but we'll take you anyway" into a message of "they said I wasn't good enough, but I proved them wrong."
Ordinarily these psychological peculiarities may be of little interest, except perhaps to a therapist. But Michelle now stands next to a man that may be elected president of the United States. Barack Obama wants everyone to "lay off" his wife. He doesn't seem to realize that this is not a reasonable request concerning a woman who clearly influences him and who stands to have public influence in her own right. Moreover, for months the media has been laying off her precisely because she is his wife. Like Michelle, Obama seems to confuse preferential treatment with ill treatment.
Of course we've had controversial first ladies in the White House before. The Obamas, however, aren't there yet. Will Barack Obama be ultimately forced to distance himself not just from the Reverend Wright and the Reverend Pfleger but also from his own wife?
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 55)
16. Wow, nice job on the D'Strawman spelling mistakes, Mokele...that's quite a bit of reference...and quite a bit of drivel to have to re-read...
brandon at 2:00PM on Jun 4th 2008
17. (and I meant that YOU had to re-read quite a bit of drivel...)
brandon at 2:01PM on Jun 4th 2008
18. Never having been to this area before I dont know who is who or what is what. I am a Democrat, but I do not blindly follow my party or a particular candidate. Having worked for a trade association for many years I have a grasp of lobbying and the political system probably better than most Americans. I have no doubt Senator Obama's wife Michelle will become her husbands greatest liability and people will look back and find Senator Clinton far more likable. She has many fences to mend, real and perceived if she wants to be First Lady. Mrs. Obama shouldnt forget we Americans prefer to be proud of our First Lady too, even if she sees our country as mean spirited, and nothing to be proud of until her husband became a viable candidate. Fair to say I suspect this is going to be one ugly, nasty political slugfest, none of us will wind up proud of.
PF Smith at 2:06PM on Jun 4th 2008
19. I found a copy of Michelle Obama's undergraduate thesis from Princeton, 1985, on the internet, though they had, at one point, tried to retract it until after the November election, to avoid scrutiny.
So far, she misspells "thank-you," in the Dedication and on page 7. It is not a hyphenated word.
Are we sure she was even an above average student?
If Michelle Obama is going to campaign for Barack, then she should be scrutinized by the public. What have they to hide?
Rev 3:16 at 2:06PM on Jun 4th 2008
20. Wow, DD must be having a slow blog day. To exclude a potential presidents wife on the basis of her grammer errors (which I am sure no one has ever done before), the interpretation of her words by anyone, and by her affirmative action status????
Is this the only tactic they can come up with? George Bush WAS the president and he was a former cokehead and alcoholic who for a while, disappeared when he should have been fighting in a war.
This means that the Republicans are getting desperate because their preacher fight isnt working well enough. They will try to rattle the cage, seeing if the bird is still alive or not.
This is a sad day in american politics when people are judged so much by everything other than whether or not they are fit to serve their country. Maybe student council members will be chosen based on their girlfriends grades.
I might just vote for Obama just because of this blog. Thanks DD...you showed me just how far you are willing to go....now I will show you how outraged I am at obama, by voting for him.
Keep it up....
CaptainCack at 7:49AM on Jun 6th 2008
21. brandon,
I just copied all the articles at once into Microsoft Word, and let that sniff out the bugs for me. There was an older blog where he wrote "avulcular grandfather style". 1st of all it's "avuncular". 2nd of all, it's an oxymoron, because "avuncular" means "uncle style".
Mokele Mbembe at 2:11PM on Jun 4th 2008
22. Rev,
Who should scrutinize the public?
Mokele Mbembe at 2:12PM on Jun 4th 2008
23. Rev; "What have they to hide?"
As far as I can tell, nothing. That's further supported by the fact that you all are picking on the candidate's wife's grammer from an undergraduate thesis.
Did the "he's clearly a muslim because he has a funny name" angle dry up for you guys?
Ryan Anderson at 2:17PM on Jun 4th 2008
24.
Wow - what a hot steaming cup of birg vomit THIS is. Not like having anything SUBSTANTIAL to go after conerning Senator Obama (like McCain's giving lip service to Vet Bennies but voting against it), we're alreay making petty pecking at Barack Obama's Wife's GRAMMAR?
OK, well maybe we should start poking at McDummie's inabilty to keep Shia and Sunni in order. Y'know, stuff that will be really, really pertinant to his first 100 days in office. How about "bomb momb bomb bomb bomb Iran" at a campaign rally? (Should the Beach Boys sue?) Or how about "I didn't vote for Bush before I voted for him?"
One is a CANDIDATE. The other is a Candidate's WIFE. If we're going to look at character flaws as a quantifier for holding office, I think maybe we should concentrate on the person that will actually hold the job.
Nice try at strawmanning the competition, though, D'Stupid.
T.Brough at 2:22PM on Jun 4th 2008
25. JANE: "I would like to add that there will always be racist people. It is a spiritual problem. You can’t force someone to view you as an equal human being. Civil Rights laws should be enforced so that legal discrimination is not a barrier. It is left up to the individual how to confront the challenge of racism."
TJ: I don't think it is spiritual, I think it is taught to children by their parents. If you want to blame religion, then fine - I don't have a problem with that.
I think there should be no affirmative action - in a perfect world - in todays increasingly diverse atmosphere there really shouldn't be a need for it anymore. I don't think we should have laws that protect people from discrimination - in a perfect world we wouldn't allow such a thing as someone being discriminated against happen. But it seems we still do. Equality should be the norm and anyone treating someone unfairly should be punished in some way for it. We have prejudices - they were taught, they were learned, they were indoctrinated from our teachers, parents, preachers. Some of us who like to question the logic behind beliefs that don't seem to make sense - have awakened ourselves to the reality of our society and have made a concerted effort to treat all people equally, no matter their color, race, gender, religion or sexual preference.
One day there might be an equality law - which states that you are expected to treat all peoples with equal respect and dignity no matter how they differ from you. In a perfect world, no such law would be required.
The preamble kinda sets it up for us in a way we can all understand:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Not one word of discrimination because of color, gender, religion, education etc. We the people. In a perfect world.
TJ at 2:22PM on Jun 4th 2008
26. Wow, I agree with DD twice in a week...yikes.
He makes a valid point. It does appear that Barack received much of his ideological training from Michelle.
If one more negative thing comes out...like the rumored "Why'd he" tape...then BO is is in deep DODO.
Davidg at 2:23PM on Jun 4th 2008
27. We all know that George W got into Harvard Business school because of his keen intellectual curosity and stellar academic background.
randy at 2:40PM on Jun 4th 2008
28. Dineesh, you should be a comedian. Your statements are downright hilarious!
68 and counting at 2:53PM on Jun 4th 2008
29. As I read what is arguably THE lamest post by DD to date, I couldn't help but thinking-
"Who ordered the hammer and nails?"
Robert at 2:50PM on Jun 4th 2008
30. With the still 'unofficial' announcement of Sen. Obama's clinching the Democratic nomination, people from AROUND THE WORLD are almost unanimously proclaiming a sense of relief, and hope, that America can rise from the ashes that was the former administrations failed policies.
That says it all.
Robert at 3:04PM on Jun 4th 2008