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 4 of 55)
46.
Stanford shoudl be ashamde of yuo.
ex-christian at 4:05PM on Jun 4th 2008
47. Michelle looks like a super patriot compared to Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfield.
Jerry Brown at 4:05PM on Jun 4th 2008
48.
Q: What does a supervillain always do when he needs leverage over the superhero?
A: Target the superhero's beloved.
Mokele Mbembe at 4:11PM on Jun 4th 2008
49. ex-christian,
See post #15.
Mokele Mbembe at 4:13PM on Jun 4th 2008
50. Thomas Jefferson, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICAN, once wrote in a letter to James Madison: "I hold that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and is as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
Senator Clinton:
SAY NO TO VP! DO NOT SURRENDER.
WE WANT YOU TO TAKE THIS TO DENVER!
sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/hillary-clinton-stay-in-the-race
DividedWeAre at 4:16PM on Jun 4th 2008
51. if Mrs. O becomes 1st lady, is it disrespectful to call her O'Mama?
fanman at 4:17PM on Jun 4th 2008
52. Sorry, bored, waiting for e-mails and phone calls to carry out the day...
Moke, I'm curious. What exactly WAS your reaction (based on yesterday's prediction) of today's post? Personally, mine was- "Oh, s**t, no f***ing way!" And it took me three times to get through it, the tears (of laughter) in my eyes just wouldn't stop!
Robert at 4:18PM on Jun 4th 2008
53. Mr. D'souza, Michelle Obama was paid a salary of $400,000 because of her performance. A white person like yourself would have received a salary of $800,000 plus bonus and other benefits for comparable performance. Therefore, Michelle Obama does not have to be grateful to a system that underpaid her and charged her the maximum amount for Social Security plus 30% federal tax and 15% state tax on a measley salary $400,000.
Clem Berry at 4:36PM on Jun 4th 2008
54. it possible that Michelle Obama is the force behind Barack Obama's refusal to embrace traditional patriotic symbols?
I highly doubt that. The more likely explanation for this, is the fact that these symbols are meaningless.
Our government is a mess. The current administration has filled posts that require highly intelligent, capable, honest people with political cronies. People who care more about party than they do about what's right.
While Dinesh is smart enough to know what REALLY brought down the Soviet Union, you will never hear him say it (his sith lord Ronnie was given credit for this.) What destroyed the Soviet system was exactly what Bush is doing - putting party suckups in positions they had no business in.
The old communist system collapsed because it couldn't function with a bureaucratic system in which virtually every branch was "led" by total incompetence. If you can't create a working policy in one area, that failure places several other branches in jeapordy. And when those branches have incompetent's running them, their inability to create policy to adjust for the shortcomings drops into yet other branches. The inevitable outcome is total collapse.
The people who were given the most important jobs were card carrying, symbol waving fanatics with no clue.
People alot like you, DD.
ex-christian at 4:32PM on Jun 4th 2008
55. It's bad enough that we have home-grown bigots like Limbaugh and Coulter. Now we have D'Souza, who has been in this country for a minute, commenting on the mental state of a black person. If D'Souza is so interested in the mental state of a prominent person who has benefited from affirmative action, he need look no further than George W. Bush. But we will never see that happen because D'Souza, like Limbaugh, Coulter and even Clarence Thomas has learned that there is good money to be made by saying negative things about non-conservatives that right-wing ideologues love to hear. Dividing people is their game and uniters like Obama scare the hell out of them.
Bob at 5:54PM on Jun 4th 2008
56. Dinesh D'Souza if you are fair, you will talk about the McCain's. If not, you are no better than the pundits on FOX News.
Bali at 4:31PM on Jun 4th 2008
57. "49. if Mrs. O becomes 1st lady, is it disrespectful to call her O'Mama?
fanman at 4:17PM on Jun 4th 2008"
Spoken like a true christian racist. Hope you're proud.
brandon at 4:32PM on Jun 4th 2008
58. As a white male I have thought long on why I'm voting against Obama. Is it racism on my part? I have decided that it isn't my racism, but Rev Wright's. Then the question is does Obama believe everything Wright does? The answer is obviously no. How much of Wright's message does he believe? Obviously some.
It seems that a large percentage of Obama followers are not religious. As an Atheist I try to understand the deepth of respect for religious leaders the faithful have. Obama told us what Wright meant to him over the last 20 years. I take his word on that. So now we are lead to believe that Wright's message was not apart of Obama's conciousness?
I have decided that we all should have a zero tolerance for racism, so it doesn't make a difference what percentage Obama believes in, any disqualifies him from the Presidency.
I only wish that I could say I'm "voting for McCain" instead of "voting against Obama."
Secular American at 4:38PM on Jun 4th 2008
59.
Oops, I spelled jeopardy wrong...
Dinesh must think I'm a total idiot now - anything I might have to say for the rest of eternity will be suspect.
ex-christian at 4:39PM on Jun 4th 2008
60. Robert,
Which prediction? It seems I know the future better than the past.
Mokele Mbembe at 4:48PM on Jun 4th 2008