Michelle Obama & Caroline Kennedy On CNN

Haven't watched it yet. Just clipped it for yall.,


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Part 3 of 3

Michelle And Barack

This is our Open Thread for today. Drop knowledge, links, opinions...share.

Barack Obama: Elitist or Uppity Nigger

I've been surprised at the tenacity of "Bittergate" and decided that this had to be about something else since it's clearly not about what he actually said nor about his explanation/clarification/apology afterwards.

Why is this meme sticking and why does it feel successul in putting a temporary slowdown in Obama's stride? Neither Barack nor Michelle had particularly ritzy upbringings. Nor did they clear nearly as much dough as the super-wealthy Clintons an McCains in the last tax cycle. But let's not let facts stand in our way (that hasn't stopped the Clintons before, right?) -- cuz clearly this has turned into some kind of meta-dogwhistle that Obama is an uppity negro looking down on all you poor white trash in America. He apparently thinks he's better than you and can't wait to lord it over you while holding a 40 ounce in one hand and a piece of fried chicken in another once he's in the White House. I'm not the only one smelling a rat. Check out this DailyKos diary from PearlJr:

This latest psychological trick intends to remind Whites that Blacks are supposed to stay behind Whites, and Barack Obama is nothing more than an irritating Uppity Negro looking down on hardworking good White folks who have less than he has, which is most untrue. After all, Barack Obama's momma was a good hard-working white folk. Unlike, the $109 million dollar Clintons and Mrs. (Cindy) McCain's $100 million dollar inheritance, Barack and Michelle Obama earned a meager $900,000 in 2007--finally those student loans could be paid off. Now who's the real elitist? Using Bill Cosby's book title, "Come On, People"

dnA's covered this ground before about a month ago in his piece: This Just In: Who Does This Uppity Negro Think He Is? which covers an earlier, similar attack on Obama by Ron Fournier/AP. Sleight-of-hand racism using code words like "arrogant", "entitlement", "elitist" where they don't belog still qualifies as racism, y'all. I'm not sure why the media is still flogging this story but it needs to stop.

Michelle Obama On Colbert

She's not just "elite". She's got class too.



Get em Michelle!

Dan Drinker Endorses Obama

Dan Drinker is a Pennsylvania resident who has Down Syndrome. His brother, Will, is making a documentary about their lives and has been posting articles and videos to dandrinker.com

One of the recent videos was Dan's endorsement of Obama. It's pretty touching and direct. He's got some especially complimentary (and accurate) things to say about Michelle Obama as well.

Distorting Michelle Obama

Yesterday Republicans were up in arms over Michelle Obama's alleged proclamation that she was only proud of her country because her husband was running for president. This was the quote they used:

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” she told a Milwaukee crowd today, “because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”

Naturally, the reaction on the Right was horror, horror, horror, that Michelle could make such a narcissistic statement. How could she only be proud of her country now that her husband is running for president?



Hot Air:

Only her husband’s run for president has made her proud of America? That’s…extremely narcissistic and self-centered.

Kathryn Lopez at NRO:

One wonders what Michelle Obama thought of America before he husband's presidential campaign. Maybe the Obamas do take after the Clintons. It's all about them too.

Victor Davis Hanson was also incensed that such an accomplished person wouldn't be grateful that she was allowed to get so far:

I wrote not long ago that Michelle Obama is a loose cannon, and I fear that her latest is not her last. I would have thought that two Ivy-League degrees, a joint income of about a million dollars, exclusive private schools for the kids, and a nice home in the suburbs were not so bad and might suggest that hope had made a comeback well before Barack's presidential run.

The tone of Hanson's post is that he is almost personally offended that the Obamas aren't on their knees thanking America for those Ivy League degrees and upper class incomes. Yeah, because the Obama's didn't earn those Ivy League degrees and incomes, they just got them because white folks were nice enough to share.

Shorter conservatism: If you're rich it's because you've earned it, unless you're black, in which case you got it because of affirmative action and maybe because white people felt sorry for you. Unless you're Clarence Thomas, who is the world's greatest silent jurist.

Derbyshire chimes in later, attacking Michelle's interests at Princeton:

Now here's Michelle Obama in the current Newsweek cover story. She graduated from Princeton in 1985 with a major in sociology and a minor in African-American Studies. Sociology, huh? At first sight that's encouraging — I mean, at least she didn't spend her entire college career obsessing about her blackness. Then Newsweek tells us the title of her senior sociology thesis: "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." (I have this mental image of her thesis adviser saying: "Michelle, isn't there some way we can squeeze another 'black' into that title?")

God forbid a black person be interested in their own community, as opposed to say, swooning over the imperialist rationalizations of Rudyard Kipling.

It should come as no surprise that Derbyshire, who likes his black and Latino women competing for the honor of cleaning his toilet bowl rather than helping their husband run for president, is offended by an outspoken black woman. But still, there's more:

Maybe I'm jaded, but I really need persuading that when I look at Barack Obama, I'm not just seeing Al Sharpton minus the pompadour and the attitude.

Translation: Don't be fooled, all black people think the same even if they don't talk alike or have perms, and even