122 thoughts on “Michelle”

  1. Excellent: great speech, great delivery, she looked fabulous… what’s not to like?
    OK, maybe it was just a tad on the hokey side – but as far as these things go, the “humanizing”/family stuff seemed very effective – 8.5 out of 10.
    And why was Barack in Kansas City?

  2. What, again? Okay:
    Michelle was SPECTACULAR.
    My secret wish was that she’d be introduced as Barack Obama’s first wife, but I guess we can’t have everything 🙂
    — TP

  4. She knocked it out of the park. No doubt about it.
    I understand that Juan Williams was in tears on FoxNews (probably because he knows they’ve lost).

  11. As a political speech, as an inspirational speech, and as a speech introducing herself and Barack to political latecomers, it was excellent.

  13. byrningman and watched juan williams cry live on fox, followed by bill kristol’s idiotic non sequiters about why the speech wasn’t that good. byrningman turned to me and and remarked that kristol really is the michael phelps of douchebags. tonight was a good example of the difference between the pat buchannans of the punditry and the kristols. even buchannan was pretty moved – he’s at least capable of taking off his operative hat.
    how can you talk about this speech without talking about those little kids? seriously?

  14. I loved her delivery, punctuating words in mid-sentence creating a accent in itself.
    that’ll echo with some new voters.
    substance was lots of schmaltz, but it’s great to hear from someone so close to him a subtle but deliberate renunciation of identity politics.
    In case you missed the warning shots, expect President Obama to compromise group agendas.
    and I think we’re getting a sense of Barack as a natural coalition builder.
    best image was of Barack driving Michele and their new born home.
    I sensed that he might have driven a little slower than she cared for.
    anyway, the sense I’m getting about his character: very deliberate.
    wouldn’t that be refreshing.

  15. I liked the speech a lot — it was nothing but Mom, country, and apple pie, but it was good apple pie. The best part was the little girls at the end, but I’m biased about little girls ever since mine was born.
    Afterwards, I watched a few minutes of a panel, where some guy was furious that the Dems had “wasted 25 minutes of prime-time” not attacking McCain. Meh. Yes, it was playing defense, but it was a forward defense, it was defense that advanced the game. They rehabilitated Michelle, they showed Barack in a very human setting that will make all the bizarre rumors about him seem much less plausible, and they made the convention a positive experience. People who stop there will be left with a good impression; people who come back for more the next few nights will be predisposed to listen, and will less easily assume that attacks are just politics.
    Also, the campaign is rolling out a good theme, a theme that builds on what worked for Hillary Clinton in the rust belt states: the ennoblement of labor and a return to the politics of opportunity.
    Poll after poll shows that most working people won’t vote for what they perceive as handouts. They don’t believe it’ll work, they don’t want charity, and they don’t want to become dependent. They don’t want fish for a day, they want at most for someone to show them a place to fish.
    IOW, as Teddy R. figured out a long time ago, most people want a square deal. They’ll take a New Deal if it seems fair, but they’re gonna be pretty nervous when somebody comes around promising a Great Society. 🙂
    This is why one of the most successful conservative memes has been that any government program favoring the working class or the indigent is a humiliating, demoralizing handout. This meme had some historical basis — but it is grossly overapplied. Now at last, Obama is learning to articulate progressive economic policies as nothing more than a way to give people a shot to work hard and get ahead. Obama and Biden hit that theme in the Biden roll-out speech – Obama promising to “restore that fair shot at your dreams” and Biden almost shouting, “when have Americans ever, ever, EVER let their country down.” Now Michelle leads with her story about her Dad working through MS and the former steelworkers who “didn’t want a handout,” just a job.
    I think we’re seeing a new Democratic image of the working class and middle class — people who are willing to work hard, sacrifice, and play by the rules, and are betrayed by a leadership that doesn’t have enough faith in their work ethic to steer some work their way. That will be very powerful. I expect the next few days to build on that image.

  18. “What Slartibartfast said.”
    ?
    The part about “who” or the part about “kidding”?
    Maybe you meant someone else? Like Th Crafty Trilobite? Or redwood?

  19. redwood: best image was of Barack driving Michele and their new born home.
    I sensed that he might have driven a little slower than she cared for.
    Wins the thread.

  20. I really liked the stuff about the difference between things as they are and things as they should be, and it hit me later that the other side believes that questioning things as they should be – that’s unpatriotic. This is why I hate them, of course.

  21. they showed Barack in a very human setting that will make all the bizarre rumors about him seem much less plausible
    i wonder how many of the people who think Barack’s a sleeper Muslim, black power, radical bomb-thrower watched Michelle’s speech…
    i tried watching the convention, but after two clunky speeches from people i’d never heard of, i switched over and watched a pair of Star Trek TNGs.

  22. What The Crafty Trilobite said – especially the bit about not using convention time to “attack McCain”. There will be plenty of time for that in the general campaign – IF “attacks” are what’s called for.

  23. I saw her speak live earlier in the campaign cycle, and she blew me away. The woman is amazing.
    They don’t call her “the closer” for nothin’.

  24. kristol really is the michael phelps of douchebags
    He’s the Coliseum, the Louvre Museum, the Tower of Pisa, the smile on the Mona Lisa.
    He’s the ace in the hole, the buttered roll, the grassy knoll.
    And a bag of chips.
    I think we’re getting a sense of Barack as a natural coalition builder.
    I think that’s Obama in a nutshell. We need it.
    Can we please fast forward to January?
    Thanks –

  26. cleek: i tried watching the convention, but after two clunky speeches from people i’d never heard of, i switched over and watched a pair of Star Trek TNGs.
    You prefer to hear clunky speeches delivered by Patrick Stuart?

  27. You prefer to hear clunky speeches delivered by Patrick Stuart?
    yeah. at least his nonsense doesn’t increase the chances of another 4 years of a GOP White House.
    plus, these two were all about Data, his evil brother, and the Borg.

  28. “You prefer to hear clunky speeches delivered by Patrick Stuart?”
    More likely Patrick Stewart. Who delivers speeches pretty well, what with that whole decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company thing, and all.

  29. She hit it out of the park. The speech was amazing; the authenticity was refreshing. The substance of who she is, and who Barack is was all there for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
    She rocked!

  30. “plus, these two were all about Data, his evil brother, and the Borg.”
    Darn. I missed this, though not because I was watching the convention instead.

  31. The best criticism I’ve seen so far is “Dems wasted a day… ” or “Michelle wearing a cocktail dress…” Which is synonymous for
    “Oh crap, this speech outfoxes our criticisms… what now?”

  33. What Slartibartfast and Jesurgislac said.
    We refer to women in the public eye by their first names rather than their last names (or their first and last names) more frequently than we do for men (unless we’re sportscasters showing off how tight we are with Sidney and Kobe and Brett and Manny). It seems disrespectful and sexist.
    She’s not Michelle from the block. She’s Michelle Obama, wife of Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama.

  34. In this, it would be good to follow the lead of the candidate, one of the people who’s fully entitled to call her by her first name alone. Speaking from the big screen: “How about that Michelle Obama?”

  37. Those kids have a future in Hollywood, I’m telling you! Lovely moment at the end, with the family looking as cute as.. oh, I don’t know, something wrapped in cuteness, deep fried in cute oil and then covered in cuteness sprinkles. Oh, and Michelle gave a hell of a speech! Will the GOP allow Cindy “Bride of Dracula” Hensley to speak? Oh please, please do!
    Overall, I thought day 1 did fairly well at generally rallying the troops, getting small people on stage to show that they own the party (even if not very rhetorically gifted in some cases), deploying a sane Republican (unearthed after several years search!), and then the big moments with Kennedy leading the battle cry, Michelle showing just how sleazy the GOP are and what a class act she is. I think attacking on day one would be a mistake – day one is about coming together, laying groundwork for the nominee’s speech, making the party feel good, and generally getting the party rolling. Also, the press are still adjusing their magic decoder rings, so you want to give them time before you go after McZombie fullbore. Hopefully that will be Clinton’s job.
    I hope she really hammers McCain – points out that trying to steal her name is the ultimate act of disrespect, and then lays out McCain’s sordid record of abusing women – adultery, skirt-chasing, abuse, rejection of equal pay, rape jokes, the whole nine yards.

  38. model 62,
    and i was just about to write about brent spiner. calling her “michelle” is disrespectful and sexist? do you have the slightest understanding of the political dynamics underlying this convention, or are you reflexively grafting a college thesis onto the optics of a presidential campaign? for instance, you do understand that the objective shared by her and by the people crafting her speeches was to humanize her – to be “michelle” – right? you do understand that, despite your adrenal criticism of obwi commenters’ naming conventions, her practical problem is that, to a majority of americans in swing constituencies, she’s not just “michelle,” right?
    one of the most important things statisticians do is to evaluate results in light of multiple consistent explanations for them. the problem is that “michelle” being called “michelle” is that are in fact a variety of explanations consistent with the colloquial use of a first-name-only referential. the most prominent of which is that the candidate’s referential is the last-name-only form, so when you deal with preference for single-name labels, the first name of the spouse is used. i assure you that i say “pelosi” as much as i say “obama.”
    look, nobody disagrees with the idea that the public discourse is in many ways profoundly unfair to women, and we should really get past some of the more barbaric elements before we fry the planet and lose our chance. but before you subject people to some overcaffinated rant about public naming conventions, try to situate your argument in the political context you scrutinize and, for the love of god, exercise some perspective. and quit pouring gasoline on this fire.

  40. Hmmm, kovarsky, please try drinking the caffeine, not smoking it. The uptake rate is dramatically different.

  41. model 62,
    well, i won’t restrain you from spiking intelligible discourse on women’s issues. continue to self-defeat.

  42. kovarsky, I am all for “intelligible discourse”, but do long-winded and pedantic rants really constitute such a thing? What happened to plain, clear English?

  43. johnthedivine, i’m not particularly fond of my phrasing either, i’m just waking up.
    anyways, the point is pretty clear – the point of the is to make her “michelle”, so it’s pretty silly to get indignant about it.
    how’s that?

  46. In defense of “Michelle”, wasn’t the convention hall bristling with placards with just her first name on them during the speech?

  48. Any pundit saying it would have been a good idea to have Michelle Obama attacking McCain has got to be a Republican fearing that the depiction of her as a violent Black Power radical is becoming less credible.

  49. Cleek, I’d suggest tuning in later in the evening if you want to avoid the clunky speeches. The best stuff is going to be saved for the end each night.

  50. kovarsky, I kind of liked the first version. 😉
    And I like your unresentful response to a mild piling-on.

  51. i read somewhere that there actually were some attacks during the day, but that they were by the surrogates in battleground states, so those were only being aired in their regions.
    seems consistent with the campaigns attempt to strike one tone at a national level and another, using targeting advertising, in battleground states.

  52. I made the mistake of watching on CNN. The disappointment on the part of the hosts and pundits at the lack of negativity was palpable. I suspect they had been looking forward to lots of solemn headshaking and finger-wagging at the abandonment of a “new kind of politics”. Instead they had to fall back on their B-material: polling their lineup of gasbags on whether the scheduled speakers were “too liberal” for mainstream America.
    Shmucks.

  53. Cleek, I’d suggest tuning in later in the evening if you want to avoid the clunky speeches.
    if SciFi runs another great two-parter tonight, it might be tough.

  54. Re: the use of “Michelle” — the entire point of her speech was to humanize both her and her family. To make them our friends and neighbors (and not in a Neil LaBute way), to make them America’s friends and neighbors.
    You call your friends by their first name, don’t you?

  56. OT: JamieM, I saw in comments on another thread that you stayed at the Morgan House in Belgravia while in London and thought, “I think I stayed there when I was in London.” As it turns out, I stayed at the Georgian House in Belgravia, so we were only 2 blocks and 10 years apart. Nice to be able to walk to Victoria Station, huh?

  59. Model 62: We refer to women in the public eye by their first names rather than their last names (or their first and last names) more frequently than we do for men (unless we’re sportscasters showing off how tight we are with Sidney and Kobe and Brett and Manny). It seems disrespectful and sexist.
    Well, yeah.
    Plus, the first Michelle I thought of when I saw “Michelle” unadorned was “Michelle Malkin”? and the cognitive dissonance was considerable. But that’s just me.
    Perhaps someone will explain how it will prevent Obama from winning in November by a big enough margin to be in the White House in January, if one blog sets the politeness standard by referring to Michelle Obama as “Michelle Obama”.
    kovarsky: anyways, the point is pretty clear – the point of the is to make her “michelle”, so it’s pretty silly to get indignant about it.
    I suppose it’s good that Obama’s campaign have figured out what happens when the Democratic candidate for First Lady is an intelligent feminist with a mind of her own (which I am quite sure is true of Michelle Obama) and is taking steps to proactively present her as a decorative trophy wife, to try to sidestep the 16-year hate campaign launched against Hillary Rodham, that culminated in the misogynistic hate-fest of the recent primaries.
    (Have I said how much I miss Molly Ivins? Ivins could have campaigned against Hillary Clinton on the issues, without getting sidetracked into nonsense like this.)
    It’s just a pity that US politics is still so misogynistic that this kind of “she’s Michelle!” campaigning is necessary. Sorry, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson: you deserve better – but so did Hillary Rodham, and never got it.

  61. anyways, the point is pretty clear – the point of the is to make her “michelle”, so it’s pretty silly to get indignant about it.
    And to prove your point, Fox News kept bizarrely referring to her as simply “Obama” in their little ticker stories.
    In case it missed most people’s attention, ‘Obama’ sounds foreign, ‘Michelle’ sounds ‘American’.
    I suppose it’s good that Obama’s campaign have figured out what happens when the Democratic candidate for First Lady is an intelligent feminist with a mind of her own
    Yeah they have, she screws up health care reform.
    Ouch.

  62. jes,
    i suppose the fact that the obama campaign has created simplified, stereotypic images of BOTH barack and michelle is something you haven’t noticed or won’t acknowledge. but michelle surely gets the brunt of it, as you describe, and that saddens me.
    but your predictable segue into the Hillary grievances comes off as increasingly forced, as we have mountains of information that it was actually her campaign – not his – that was most aroused by the idea of appeals to the public’s most revolting instincts.
    so if michelle’s speech is for you an authentic moment of sadness about how we treat volcanically gifted women in this society, i feel you. but if it is for you simply a vehicle by which you can resubmit your tiring position that anyone who dislikes hillary (i don’t) is a sexist, then we’ll all stipulate to the fact that we already know that’s how you feel.

  63. I think it’s also pretty obvious that a decisive factor is whether or a person’s spouse is also a famous politician/associated figure. Hence ‘Pelosi’, ‘Sebelius’, ‘McCain’, but ‘Bill’, ‘Hillary’, ‘Barack’ etc. It’s true that women in Democratic circles tend to get called by the first names more frequently, but that’s precisely because the women aren’t arm candy in the Democratic Party and so the need to differentiate who precisely you are talking about arises more often.
    Thus, apart from the very pertinent fact that the objective of the Obama campaign is to make the public feel like the know and like the family, perceiving structural misogyny in this case seems to me to have gotten things completely backwards.
    I’m pretty sure that those who refer to Prez Bush as ‘Dubya’ either want to differentiate him from other well-known Bushes, or to express affection.

  64. I feel betrayed! I thought it was a Malkin speech and just wondered why nobody told me that Obama had married her as integral part of his across thae aisle approach. 😉
    Hm, maybe some nativists could be moved to vote for Big O., if we spread the rumor that the one Michelle is actually the other minstrel-showing ;-)².

  65. To get back to the original point though, I thought she did a good job – wobbly at the start, but warmed into it nicely. Her basketball-coach brother’s evident discomfort made his introduction all the more effective.
    The kids were blatantly exploited at the end, but just as I quelling the need to vomit, they proved to be so redonkulously cute that it didn’t matter how contrived their appearance was. If the election is very close, those kids just might win it for him.

  67. Model 62’s point about Kobe et al is really interesting. There is a strange interaction between celebrity and naming. There is a longing to be on a first name basis with celebrity and there is also a desire to make our relationship with people less formal. I’d ask why Model 62 thinks that sportscasters referring to Kobe and LeBron is not disrepectful or sexist in that context? I think that publius liked the speech, and the use of the first name is a very succinct way of letting people know that fact. If he had titled this ‘Michelle Obama’s speech’, we would likely infer that he didn’t like it, while a title like ‘The wife of Obama’s speech’ would have us wonder what was modifying what.
    That ability of using names to mark social distance doesn’t yield to a simple ‘X is bad, so we have to do Y’. It is good to be aware of it, but it is also important to acknowledge that using the first name is also a way of shrinking social distance in order to signal more personal support. And certainly, going into this election, I am not going to get on anyone’s case for signalling their personal support of the Obama candidacy.
    On to the speech, I loved it, and though the kids at the end was cavity inducing, I loved the way the youngest one wanted to talk to her daddy and have his attention. Corny, yes, but I see the dynamic every day with my daughters, so it meant something to me.

  70. Look, let’s be clear here: all political campaigns create simplified, dumbed-down images, mostly with the eager assistance of the MSM. Did we ever hear about the “real” Kennedy? The “real” Reagan? Is John McCain just a POW who can’t count his (or her) houses? Getting in a tizzy about campaigns doing this is about as insightful as protesting H20 as the formula for water.
    Also, debating this sort of surface fluff about names (are we talking Micheelle, Michelle Obama, Michelle Robinson, Michelle Robinson-Obama, Michelle Obama-Robinson.. the list is endless, and she seems perfectly happy with being Michelle) distracts us from really thinking about the speech and its wider impact. I thought it did a good job, was pitch-perfect, and successfully showcased the Obama family as ordinary, sincere, likeable people.
    As for the complaints about how the US treats gifted women, yes, it could do much better, as could all societies, but in politics you play the cards you have at the time you have them. The fact that Michelle didn’t deliver a red-meat feminist rant isn’t a bad thing at all under the circumstances. Causes are more often advanced by a subtle approach, rather than charging up the hill towards the waiting guns. She wrote her own speech, and I think we should assume she said what she wanted. I would rather make some progress piece by piece than rush recklessly to disaster.

  71. byrningman: In case it missed most people’s attention, ‘Obama’ sounds foreign, ‘Michelle’ sounds ‘American’.
    Unfortunately it sounds more French than American (at least to me). Not that either Obama “looks French” but such details never stopped a good GOPing.

  73. The notion that the person who made that speech last night is being presented (or, for that matter, would accede to being presented) as a decorative trophy wife is so incomprehensible to me that I wonder if the person harboring it has ever seen a “real” decorative trophy wife.
    From another angle: I am as highly educated as Michelle Obama, at institutions just as prestigious, and though I have nothing whatsoever like her accomplishments in the wider world, I could definitely say similar things about the centrality of my children, and my raising of them, in my life. There’s nothing decorative about it.
    Harrumph.

  74. Unfortunately it sounds more French than American (at least to me). Not that either Obama “looks French” but such details never stopped a good GOPing.
    I agree, although phonetically Michelle could refer to either of them in France, making this discussion even more complicated!
    As far saying Barack Obama doesn’t “look French”, well, well, now who sounds like a Le Pen-voting bigot from la France profonde? (just kidding, btw)

  76. I think the equation of “Michelle” with a “French” name is about as plausible as assuming that every Sharon has to remind us of Ariel. Michelle, Sharon, Suzanne etc are throughly generic names, without any real link to their origins.

  77. So here’s my conservative take:
    Style:
    High marks. She’s well spoken (not perfect, but I’d be picking at nits), wasn’t (for the most part) rushed (I hate convention speakers that have no sense of timing and don’t know when to start again after applause), and didn’t overplay the emotion card (probably could have used even a bit more). And, of course, she’s gorgeous.
    Substance:
    Since the point of the speech was no secret,(she really loves America, she’s just like you, etc. etc. ) I’d have to give it high marks as well. She covered her love of country,family, support for the troops, faith, did I say family?, and hard work without dwelling too much on any topic. The casual Republican listener would have been surprised given the press.
    Uniting all in hope and love:
    I was wondering how Jes would weigh in and I have to say that this was a bit too much anti-feminist (or maybe pre-feminist)from a tactical standpoint given the substantial Hillary supporters in the crowd (she mentions them once and they go nuts). The speech could have and should have found a way to unite the Hillary/feminist branch better with the Obama wing (not that I have any ideas). There was a lot of power to tap that barely got utilized. I say this not necessarily agreeing that it was negative to emphasize a nuclear family time and again, but that could have been done in a way that reached out and involved others. But maybe they’re saving that for Barack.
    Personal view:
    While I think it was a great success in its intended purpose, for me personally, too much bathos. Somehow the Dems get away with it at their convention.
    Yet even though I was aware of the attempts to pull heart strings, the “Michelle” familiarity angle, etc. I couldn’t help but like the example of a strong woman in a strong marriage with great kids having a united purpose. The “kiss every night” hits home for those of us with kids that still get tucked in. Juan Williams’ reaction moved me, and I started actually getting proud of the Dems but then recognized her Locutus of Borg move and ran away to keep from being assimilated.
    Sure, I also noticed the attempt to cover up the “first time I loved my country” gaffe, (and Olbermann thought I’d miss it the dufus). And I thought that she said essentially the same thing in a more high-minded way, so it wasn’t very convincing even though it sounded good. And the attempt to portray her as typical was a bit much (no reference to Princeton or Harvard, but just “college”).
    But with all that said, it was a very good speech. There. I said it.

  79. Oops! I called JanieM “JamieM” upthread. Didn’t pick that up until you dropped the “M.” My brain has always seen “JamieM” for some reason. Sorry.
    (Please don’t analyse my mistake ad nauseum in such a way that maximizes the offense you can take from it, anyone. Not that anyone would do that around here. Jeez, “Michelle,” are you kidding? It’s quite the tightrope that has to be walked, isn’t it?)

  80. cleek,
    don’t understand your question. campaign has to dumb down both people, not just michelle. therefore, it’s not purely a gender issue.

  81. I don’t think it would have been wise to spend too much time on Hillary themes for Michelle (Obama, Obama-Robinson, Robinson-Obama etc etc). That would risk stepping on the toes of Hillary’s (Rodham, Clinton, Rodham Clinton etc etc) big night, diluting her themes, and even seeming patronizing. Better to give the shout-out to show goodwill and unity, and then do her own job. Hillary’s speech is going to be one of the big big moments that define the convention, and I hope she has enough ginger to really go after McCain on women and women’s issues.

  82. I have to say that this was a bit too much anti-feminist (or maybe pre-feminist)from a tactical standpoint given the substantial Hillary supporters in the crowd (she mentions them once and they go nuts)
    I don’t think her target audience was the Hillary crowd, I think her purpose was to humanize/familiarize the Obama family for the whole American public and to prove that she wasn’t a radical fist-jabbing terrorist.
    Hillary’s job is to rally the Hillary crowd; it would have been pretty condescending for Michelle to try to do so purely on the basis that she’s a woman too, and merely the candidate’s wife.

  83. johnthedivine: You are welcome to call me Janie, everyone else does (in “real” life). But you might get a howl from Gary (sometimes Hussein) Farber about people not using internet handles that sufficiently distinguish them from other people on the internet.
    😉
    In fact, when I teach or tutor, no matter what the age or training/credentialing difference, I always suggest that people call me Janie. My last name is long and (from certain perspectives) difficult to pronounce and spell. Besides that, and more to the present point, I prefer using it precisely because it cuts down on social distance and invisible rank orderings, and lets me at least attempt to relate as the person I am and not as a collection of degrees, roles, and credentials.
    As for the harrumph, I am in a very bad mood today and that was my way of crankily refraining from a long and probably barely coherent rant.
    Maybe I’ll just lurk for a while, or heaven knows, try to get some work done.
    [I see I’m going too slow to keep up anyhow! hairshirthedonist, no offense taken at the n/m substitution. As someone else has mentioned, I always do a double take at your handle too; somehow “the [ortho]dontist” is always the image that flashes through my mind, even though I’ve carefully studied the fact that that’s not it!]

  85. Partially kidding: There are blacks* that “look** [enter name of former colonial power]”.
    *and Arabs for that matter (I think I know enough personally to make a judgement here)
    **and/or talk

  86. don’t understand your question. campaign has to dumb down both people, not just michelle
    the Obamas seem like the least “dumbed down” of any political family i’ve seen.

  87. bc,
    I’d suggest the emphasis on children was a way of linking up with feminists in the speech, and a more overt attempt, via something like multiple invocations of HRC’s name, would not have gone over well. To generalize JanieM’s comments about her views, the centrality of children and raising them is something that strikes a deeper chord in women than you realize.
    Now, after the impact of this speech, I’m wondering what kind of role, if any, Biden’s wife will have in the campaign. (She was a high school teacher who dealt with emotionally disturbed children) I think the two of them campaigning could be very cool.

  88. janieM,
    i do think that jes’s criticism has some merit. we should all applaud her role in raising her children. but it is also absurd that we have to pretend that’s all she is. it would be nice if “sanitizing” her image didn’t involve omitting things that anybody should be proud of.

  90. Janie, I can’t help being one of many Johns *s*. Is it my fault I wasn’t a POW? And I know how you feel about teaching – never much liked having students use a formal title. See, here I am confessing to being a dangerous leftie. “He admits to teaching in public! Condemn him!”

  91. cleek,
    all i’m saying is that michelle isn’t allowed to say harvard and princeton in her speech and barack has to be coached away from ‘nuance’ in debates. it’s a byproduct of having to avoid the elitism tag, but it’s still happening.
    i’m not saying there’s not public evidence that they’re both brilliant.

  93. kovarsky, I was going to say that in the same way I didn’t see what Jes apparently saw, I didn’t see that the speech was making a pretense that that’s “all” she is.
    Then I remembered that immediately before watching the speech on YouTube this morning (I didn’t see it last night), I watched the 6-minute video that Gary linked to yesterday, that started with her mother and had her mother and other family members and friends talking about her, about her father, etc.
    So I had just had an explicit reminder of the things she’s done in her own right in the world. And even if I could wipe out the impression of that pre-video — well, I already know what she’s done in her own right.
    I guess I still don’t see that she’s presenting herself as “only” a wife and mother. Mileage varies, inevitably.

  94. Pffff…if you consider Princeton and Harvard “brilliant”…
    Hell Bill Kristol got a phd from harvard even though you’d think he was really a phd student’s test monkey.

  95. The “of course”, of course.
    ========================
    There will be plenty of time for that in the general campaign – IF “attacks” are what’s called for.
    There are a bunch of plastic keys (like parents give teething babies) being passed out on the convention floor. Every time McCain’s name is mentioned, the conventioneers are going to hold them up and jangle them. As visually interesting as “Purple Heart Bandages” and not as insulting to the troops.
    ==========================
    I think that’s Obama in a nutshell. We need it.
    Read The Sideshow. Carol seems to think that progressive politics are going to spring from nothing and that if a politician isn’t 100% progressive, s/he’s not worth voting for. And some of her commentariat is worse.
    =================
    Will the GOP allow Cindy “Bride of Dracula” Hensley to speak?
    I get tingles just thinking about her introduction: Heiress of a beer company, adultress, drug abuser, and doesn’t trust her own husband. Sounds like a great First Lady to me!
    =====================
    I made the mistake of watching on CNN.
    I went to C-Span pretty quickly (my girlfriend had been watching CNN when I got home). No cute factoids, but no “pundits” talking over the speeches either. I consider that a step up.
    ======================
    present her as a decorative trophy wife
    I can’t see Ms Obama ever taking that role. She said she plans to use the status of First Lady to do even more community outreach. I expect more Roselyn Carter than Betty Ford.

  96. I thought Kristol applied for the test monkey position, was rejected, and settled for becoming a GOP fluffer instead.

  97. “Poll after poll shows that most working people won’t vote for what they perceive as handouts.”
    Pork-barrel construction jobs, tax rebates and sweetheart trade deals not being perceived as handouts, of course. 😉

  98. janie,
    i think i probably spoke in absolutes when i shouldn’t have. obviously the speech didn’t suggest that’s “all” she was, which i also didn’t mean to suggest. but i just meant to say that i thought it clearly soft-pedaled some of her more appealing attributes because they feared they would feed some stupid narrative about her.
    i’m a lot closer to you on this than jes.

  100. Read The Sideshow. Carol seems to think that progressive politics are going to spring from nothing and that if a politician isn’t 100% progressive, s/he’s not worth voting for. And some of her commentariat is worse.

    The perfect is enemy of the good. Or vice versa.
    Hrm. I’m of the mind that reversing the political changes of the past few years won’t be done all at once, but will have to be done gradually, and, more importantly, with great numbers of people to back you up. Doing it all at once, with no constituency, doesn’t seem feasible.
    Or perhaps I’ve sold out….

  101. To take the other side of gwangung’s observation, this Rick Perlstein piece was quite interesting, suggesting that there is a specific window for getting progressive agendas enacted. However, those who demand fidelity to progressive notions in toto don’t seem to figure into the mix.
    Apologies if this link was posted earlier, I’ve been away.

  102. Will the GOP allow Cindy “Bride of Dracula” Hensley to speak?
    Maybe she could try topless (to show that she could have successfully partaken in that infamous beauty contest 😉 )

  103. Argh, just heard someone on NPR describe Hillary Clinton as “the last woman standing between the nomination and the Obama juggernaut” — and it was the host, not some idiot pundit guest.

  104. Argh, just heard someone on NPR describe Hillary Clinton as “the last woman standing between the nomination and the Obama juggernaut” — and it was the host, not some idiot pundit guest.
    These days, “someone on NPR” = “some idiot pundit”. There area VERY few exceptions — not many though.

  105. kovarsky: but if it is for you simply a vehicle by which you can resubmit your tiring position that anyone who dislikes hillary (i don’t) is a sexist
    Missing the point, kovarsky. Let me repeat the point, since you missed it.
    I miss Molly Ivins for many reasons, but not least because Molly Ivins campaigned against Hillary Clinton on the issues, without getting sidetracked into nonsense like this.
    It is, however, predictable that whenever I point out the succession of pointlessly misogynistic attacks on Clinton in the primaries, I get accused of playing the sexist card.
    It is a predictable silencing tactic. It doesn’t work on me, because it’s predictable.
    If we can go back to the point: Michelle Obama is being presented as a trophy wife. Making sure the American public think of her as “Michelle” is a good strategy. It’s a damn shame that the US politics is so misogynistic that’s necessary, but quite evidently, it is.

  106. If we can go back to the point: Michelle Obama is being presented as a trophy wife.

    In your opinion.
    However, that’s not something that comes to my mind. Nor, I suspect, to a majority of Americans.

  107. I was just about to write this:

    Michelle Obama is not being presented as a trophy wife.
    I could stop there, and not offer any more support for my bald assertion than Jes gave for hers. And the reason for doing that would be that my impression of what was going on last night is not only completely at odds with Jes’s, but just like hers, it’s not a matter of proof or evidence. It is a matter of the gut.

    But gwangung got in ahead of me and said it better.
    Other people have said something like this already, but one thing that I think was going on last night was bridge-building. Very few people, for instance, can relate to having gone to Princeton and Harvard, but many people can relate to loving your children and making them central in your life. Trying to build that bridge is not pandering, it doesn’t reduce the value of uncommon accomplishments on the part of either of the adult Obamas, and it doesn’t imply that there’s nothing more to Michelle Obama than wife- and motherhood.

  108. Me, I tend to look at “Michelle” as more of an example of how Americans worship their celebrities so much that we refer to them by first name only. Because we’re on a first-name basis.
    Or I suppose it could be that pointless-misogyny thing. Everyone knows that if you see things a certain way, that’s the way they really are.

  109. Michelle Obama is being presented as a trophy wife.
    I think that if anyone told Ms Obama she was being presented as a “trophy wife”, that person would find themselves with a shampooed time-piece, if you get my drift.
    Of course, if the “anyone” above had an agenda that they weren’t being honest about, they would deserve said shampooing.
    ===================
    it doesn’t imply that there’s nothing more to Michelle Obama than wife- and motherhood.
    Indeed. What would be the point of presenting the “Public Allies” speakers if Ms Obama is “only” a wife and mom?

  110. But gwangung got in ahead of me and said it better.

    Hm. I don’t think I agree with that. You said it in a very lovely way.
    I guess I’m not in an agreeable mood today.

  111. I think it is much sadder commentary on American political life that a candidate and his wife shy away from mentioning their laudable educational accomplishments, especially so since they come from a demographic that suffers in that regard.

  112. Although I’ve always thought that the dog whistle aspect (one of many perhaps) to the ‘elitist’ charge, the Rovian ‘guy you hate in the country club’ charge, is to suggest that they only got there because of affirmative action.

  113. I think it is much sadder commentary on American political life that a candidate and his wife shy away from mentioning their laudable educational accomplishments, especially so since they come from a demographic that suffers in that regard.
    Ms Obama did mention her parents saving to send her and her brother to college, as well as saying that Obam’s mother also saved to send him. She didn’t mention which colleges, but it’s not like she avoided the accomplishments altogether.

  114. I think it is much sadder commentary on American political life that a candidate and his wife shy away from mentioning their laudable educational accomplishments, especially so since they come from a demographic that suffers in that regard.

    Certainly true, and, again, quite said. The anti-intellectual strain is quite strong in current American culture nowadays…

  115. this Rick Perlstein piece was quite interesting, suggesting that there is a specific window for getting progressive agendas enacted.
    Perlstein has an interesting point, but I’d also point out that some of the examples he cites — reconstruction, the great society, even FDR’s new deal — are fresh sources of resentment to this day among those who are, fundamentally, not interested in a progressive agenda.
    From what I can see and hear, I appear to be well to the left of most Americans. If I could wave my magic wand and cram my personal political objectives down everyone else’s throat, it might be an interesting exercise, but it would not make a really lasting difference in our political and social culture. As soon as my hand was off the wand, the conservative flying monkeys would be hard at work to demolish whatever I’d built.
    And why not? Who the hell am I to tell them how to live? What the hell do I know about their interests and concerns? It’d be understandable, if regrettable from my point of view.
    The whole country is not like me.
    I’m actually in favor of the modest and pragmatic agenda that Obama presents, because (a) a fair amount of it might actually happen, and (b) if and when it does it might actually have some legs, because it will have a broad constituency.
    In the meantime, I’m staying in Massachusetts.
    I think it is much sadder commentary on American political life that a candidate and his wife shy away from mentioning their laudable educational accomplishments
    I agree.
    Personally, I don’t want to sit and have a beer with the President. I don’t want him to have time to have a beer.
    I don’t want a president who thinks about things in simple, common-sense, workaday ways. I have that base covered, thanks very much. And I have no solution to the issues we face.
    I want a president that is smarter, more ambitious, harder working, more of a natural leader, and generally more excellent than I am in any way I can think of.
    OK, maybe not more handsome. And definitely not a better drummer, gigs are hard enough to come by. But everything else. 🙂
    President ain’t drinking buddy. It ain’t regular guy, friendly next door neighbor, or bowling partner. President is president. It’s a hard freaking job. It’s for high achievers — smart, confident, tough, competent, accomplished, hard working people.
    If folks like that make you feel inadequate, please stay home on election day.
    Thanks –

  116. “It is, however, predictable that whenever I point out the succession of pointlessly misogynistic attacks on Clinton in the primaries, I get accused of playing the sexist card.”
    No, it’s the case when you call pointing out that Clinton wasn’t, in fact, under sniper fire in Bosnia a “misogynistic attack” that you, etc.
    “Michelle Obama is being presented as a trophy wife.”
    Suggestion for an exercise: how she was presented is on video tape: go through the tape, and scene by scene, deconstruct how she was presented as a trophy wife. Educate everyone.

  117. Are we still beating around the tired old mulberry bush of misogyny in the primaries? You can argue that the MSM was misogynistic, but using misogyny as an excuse to relitigate the Democratic nomination, and, indeed the convention is simply folly.
    Equally, anyone who thinks of Michelle Obama as a trophy wife is simply not facing reality or does not know what the term means. Trophy wives are hardly blazingly intelligent, top-rate orators, and seldom have accomplished careers in their own right. When Michelle and Barack met, she was rather more successful, materially, than he was, and hardly the stuff of which trophies are made.
    I am sorry, but the fact she works with some political realities, while remaining her own woman – she wrote her speech, remember -hardly allows anyone to call her a trophy wife in good faith. If you are angry about the lack of suicidal feminist gestures in the speech and the convention, by all means, be upset about it, and talk about it honestly, but don’t use Michelle Obama as a strawperson for a tendentious argument about trophy wives.

  118. If anyone cares to notice such things, Lilly Ledbetter spoke well. No oratorical flash, but to the point, effective and making a very strong point.

  121. Frankly the whole trophy discussion strikes me as dumb. These two people are both impressive, and they obviously respect and adore each other. Why don’t we talk about something useful – eg. the fact that McCain is lazy, incompetent and as hyper-aggressive as a child that got too much orange juice.

  122. fratersuspex@9:37: Well put. Musing on this as the day has gone on, I’ve realized that what’s so incredibly offensive about the trophy wife notion is that it insults and condescends to Michelle while masquerading as coming to her defense against insults and condescension.
    As if she’s either such a non-entity, or so calculating, that she would let herself be presented as such.
    gwangung — In the short video I watched (not the speech), the Obamas are talking about their early courtship and it all hinges on his asking to take her out for ice cream….. Now there’s a trophy husband for you. 😉

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