One of the great things about presidential campaigns is you get to see the spouses mess up for the reporters. Bill Clinton's done it and now, so has Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama today said that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.”
For the first time? Really? I'm the same age as Michelle Obama, and I can think of all kinds of times when I was proud of my country.
--When an American first landed on the moon.
--When the Soviet Union fell.
--When we gave billions in aid to places suffering from natural disasters, from earthquakes to hurricanes, to tsunamis
--When Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court
And, as John Podoretz points out, there are things that happened in our lifetimss that we didn't remember at the time (like passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), but which shaped our lives and made her husband's run for president both possible and, in some ways, unremarkable.
Sure, it was a stupid, insensitive, off the cuff thing for Michelle to say, but too many of those and she'll be labelled the new Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Podoretz points out there are multiple problems with this mistake, The first is that it shows the near-messianic nature of Obama's campaign. Yesterday, I was listening to Michael Medved's program and he asked Obama supporters to name a single reason they think Barak Obama should be president. The response was stunning and pathetic. Not a single person had a logical reason--let alone a policy position--they could name for why Obama should be president. It all came down to the idea that he could "get things done" (even though they didn't know what they wanted doing) and that he would bring "hope" (although from what or for what they couldn't say). Along with the phony fainting woman at his campaign stops, it's apparent that Obama has become more of a cult figure than a political candidate.
Podoretz' second point was even more important.
Second, it suggests the Obama campaign really does have its roots in New Class leftism, according to which patriotism is not only the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the first refuge as well — that America is not fundamentally good but flawed, but rather fundamentally flawed and only occasionally good.
Do we really want a president who is ashamed of the U.S.? Lefties are reflexively embarrassed at flag-waving patriotism, but, it seems to me, that you don't run for president of a country that hasn't given you the best opportunities in life and of which you can't say is "the last best hope on Earth."
Michelle Obama's had a cushy life, complete with the sorts of opportunities her parents and grandparents would have been denied. It would have been unthinkable. Yet, rather than be grateful to America for its opportunities and freedoms, Michelle Obama says that only now is she proud of America.
Do we really want this attitude in the White House?
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