(Michelle) Obama's Judgment

The NY Times fashionistas try to compare Michelle to Barbara Bush, now Maureen Dowd is leading the vanguard of the Gray Lady proletariat in cutting off questions about Michelle Obama:

Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of “Kill the witch.”

There are some who think it will be harder for America to accept a black first lady — the national hostess who serenely presides over the White House Christmas festivities and the Easter egg roll — than a black president.

Once again, we are all racists now. Except for a select few of course. (And no mainstream conservative blog has made an issue of the Hussein in the middle of Barack Obama's name, except to say there shouldn't be a stigma attached to it--and that Obama emphasized it himself early on.)

Well, Michelle's channeling Jackie Kennedy serenity didn't work so well, and we may well ask why. I wouldn't say Michelle Obama was an "unwilling contestant", I would say she was a very in your face player--her choice. Even Dowd admits it:

She has spent more time dwelling on the ways in which society can pull down the less privileged and refers a lot to a callous but unnamed “They.”

We don't need yet another tape (most surely phony, the rumor planted by Hillary) to figure out where Michelle Obama is coming from, she has told us angrily and publicly (the initial uncut version) and repeatedly, on the stump.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ, back in March:

His closest adviser, Michelle Obama, has left little doubt about her views of American society, and its people. These views have received relatively scant coverage, other than in the brief period that followed her observation on the campaign trail in Wisconsin a few weeks back, when the wife of the candidate told crowds that she was, for the first time in her life, "proud" of her country. It was an attention-getting pronouncement quickly amended and recast, once the uproar of amazement began to be heard.

Everyone can have an untoward moment under the pressures of campaigning. It was obvious, nonetheless, that this was no blip, no failure to express her real thought. She said exactly what she'd wanted to say. And for doing so Mrs. Obama expected no amazed response. The comment reflected her deeply held, grim view of American society, one she was accustomed to sharing with others who thought likewise. Why should it not have come tripping from the tongue?

It was, furthermore, just one of numerous such revelatory statements she has regularly made. In speeches on the campaign trail she has held forth on her view of America, which is, as she describes it, a country that is "downright mean" and "driven by fear." She recently waxed irate over the American attention to security interests, arguing that we should be "changing the conversation" and building diplomatic relations "instead of protecting ourselves against terrorists." A minor note, to be sure, though it's to be hoped that a President Obama will not turn to this closest adviser for her views on the national defense.

Another judgment call by Barack Obama. (But he shares those views.)

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty, The Campaign Spot, pegs Obama's new campaign slogan, "No, You're Wrong". You see, we are not the ones we've been waiting for--it's all about Barack. And who is Barack Obama?:

As Barack Obama’s campaign becomes defined by a series of embarrassments — his assessment of what small-town residents cling to, a mentor who believes the government created HIV, a friend of 20 years who takes to the pulpit and demands whites give up 401(k) accounts to atone for their ancestor’s racist sins, a wife who pledges to take away some people’s pie and give it to others, an associate who expresses no regret over planting a bomb in a Pentagon women’s bathroom, etc. — it seems mind-boggling that this candidate was once promoted as a healer, a unifier, and a groundbreaking, post-partisan leader.

UPDATE: LA Times, "Michelle Obama in the hot seat too", dismissing criticism of merely her "earthy sense of humor". Somehow I don't think she comes across as a funny woman. Sorry, MSM, it won't wash. We are not the ones peddling hate. Michelle Malkin weighs in.

--crossposted at UNCoRRELATED