Michelle Obama - They Hope She's Changed

Barack Obama couldn't disown his wife the way he disowned his former minister, so he had her remade.  Here she is paraded before the Obama press office formerly known as the NY Times:

Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign plane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image.

Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Mrs. Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of “whitey.” Mrs. Obama shakes her head.

“You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be,” she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: “I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me.”

Now her husband’s presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff. On Wednesday, Mrs. Obama will do a guest turn on “The View,” the daytime talk show on ABC, with an eye toward softening her reputation.

"View" coverage from Prof. Althouse and the NY Times Caucus.  Bonus pathos from Lynn Sweet.

Now, check this next bit, ludicrously presented as a sympathetic and positive story of her professional efforts:

In the mostly black neighborhoods around the hospital, Mrs. Obama became the voice of a historically white institution. Behind closed doors, she tried to assuage their frustrations about a place that could seem forbidding.

Like many urban hospitals, the medical center’s emergency room becomes clogged with people who need primary care. So Mrs. Obama trained counselors, mostly local blacks, to hand out referrals to health clinics lest black patients felt they were being shooed away.

She also altered the hospital’s research agenda. When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school principals about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects.

Mrs. Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.

“She’ll talk about the elephant in the room,” said Susan Sher, her boss at the hospital, where Mrs. Obama is on leave from her more-than-$300,000-a-year job.

What elephant?  That at some point the black community needs to stop invoking Tuskegee as an excuse for ignoring the medical community?  Jeremiah Wright cited Tuskegee as his basis for believing that the US government might have been responsible for the AIDS virus - per RAND, that paranoid fantasy costs lives.

In a different and better world the community affairs director for a hospital would use her college education and neighborhood roots to educate and reassure the community that her hospital was not actually interested in recreating ghastly medical misadventures from the past.  In this world, it looks like the Sister Grim is less interested in resolving these grievances and more interested in nursing them.

Comments

[Rocco]

Mrs. Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.

And now thanks to Michelle Obama, white doctors let hundreds of black women go untreated.

[Rick Ballard]

Has anyone asked her if the Obama kids have spent a day in Chicago public schools? If not, is it a lack of fresh fruit?

[Sue]

I had a toothache after reading that article this morning. Too much saccharine.

[bgates]

How terribly racist to deny poor black children access to medical-
wait, who did it?
Oh.

How principled of Michelle to stand up to her employer and protect her community from...uh...

Hey, how much do you think Susan Cher makes?

[Rocco]

Maybe we could call this one the pap smear?

[clarice]

Rick, their kids go to the private school run by the Univ of Chicago and I believe their tuition is paid at least in part by the hospital.

The reason given for dissuading the hospital from participating in the study is of course ridiculous and frankly racist, but the vaccine is not without problems IIRC. Still one expects that following medical ethics guidelines the hospital would properly inform participants of any shortcomings.

[Jane]

In a different and better world the community affairs director for a hospital would use her college education and neighborhood roots to educate and reassure the community that her hospital was not actually interested in recreating ghastly medical misadventures from the past. In this world, it looks like the Sister Grim is less interested in resolving these grievances and more interested in nursing them.

Makes you wonder what sort of "change" the Obamas are trying to foist on this country. Should we now all adopt the values of Reverend Wright.

The democrats are calling for nationalization of the oil industry today - I guess because they have been so successful in their other endeavors. So maybe it's Hugo Chavez change Obama is peddling. I await his proclamation that this is not the democrat party he once knew.

[ParseThis]

Well, that didn't take long. Opting out of clinical trials becomes left untreated. Not being a guinea pig in an experiment becomes being denied access to medical care.

Does this come naturally or do you have to work at it?

[kim]

Interfering in an approved clinical trial for political reasons stinks, if not being explicitly unethical. Were she not married to Obama, the academicians at that University would have objected.
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[Beldar]

Parse: She denied her supposed constituency the opportunity to be educated and then to make an informed choice whether to participate. The result will almost certainly be unnecessary and avoidable STDs and cervical cancer. Cf. the position of Dr. Ken Alexander of the Pediatrics Dep't of the University of Chicago:

Dr. Alexander, a proponent of the HPV vaccine in young women, cautions lawmakers about proposed legislation that would require the HPV vaccine in the sixth grade. While stating that he does believe that teenaged girls should be immunized, he expresses his belief that this view is one that should not be forced upon the public but rather decided on the family level.

Pro-choice Michelle took away the choices of these girls and young women and their families.

[kim]

Heh, it's not every body who gets backed up by Beldar that fast.
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[kim]

The really interesting question is what happens to the control non-immunized patients. Presumably the trial could be abrogated when the benefits of the immunization became statistically significant.

But you see, since it works, the control patients developed HPV and will get cervical ca. at a higher rate. The reason the trial is ethical is that until it was done, no one knew if it worked. And, of course, it can't be marketed until safety and efficacy are demonstrated to statistical significance and the satisfaction of experimental ethics committees.
====================================

[kim]

But since she stopped it in the University of Chicago patient population, none of them got the benefit of earlier treatment than they would have otherwise, so it is almost a certainty that her actions caused some to develop HPV and someday, cervical cancer. If her stopping it at the University of Chicago delayed the whole study, then there are a lot of young women whose disease can be laid to her feet. It's a bit of a stretch to blame her, but the numbers are there.

That's my VIEW.
==========

[Rick Ballard]

"She denied her supposed constituency the opportunity to be educated and then to make an informed choice whether to participate."

Fer cryin' out loud, Beldar, we're talking IL-2 here. Bobby Rush and Barack Obama make the choices and if you have a problem with that, take it up with Jesse Jackson Jr. in IL-1, Richard Daley in city hall or Rod Blagojevich (as if) down in Springfield.

It's the Chicago Way - you get informed of your choice right after it's made for you.

[Jor]

Although not the best medical decision on the HPV vaccine -- I believe just a few months ago, groups on the Right were advocating the same thing, but for a completely different set of paranoid reasons.

Anyway, I'm sure TM reported just as breathlessly then on the Right's paranoid assault on the HPV vaccine as he is Mrs. Obama's.

She is the first lady -- not the president. IF we are going to get to this level of nit-picking, I eagerly await for you to smooth over Cindy McCain's drug addiction.

[bgates]

Racism In Health Care
"This denial of health care occurs not only as overt racism, but also as a result of institutional racism. The research from the United States clearly demonstrates that within a country, racial barriers to quality health care may manifest themselves in a number of ways including: disproportionate lack of economic access to health care, barriers to hospitals and health care institutions...lack of data and standardized collection methods, inadequate inclusion in health care research.... These factors contribute to "racially disadvantaged" groups having disparities in health status, unequal access to health care services, insufficient participation in health research...."
There's a leftist law prof, Speaking Truth to Power about the importance of including racial minorities in medical research. Parse that.

[kim]

This could and should be part of the discourse. Her actions speak to racism, medical care, and illegitimate influence.

If this is the new Michelle, maybe they better re-release the old.
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[kim]

Fortunately, since they've been hot-housed in an echo chamber, neither Michelle nor Obama realize just how whack they are.
===========================

[Rick Ballard]

Kim,

I don't believe it's hothouse raising for a moment. She's sending signals with this, just like BHO was sending signals flipping off RW.

She's upholding the Right Racist Reverend Wright and letting TUCC know that she and BHO are still core members.

[PeterUK]

Hasn't being black been kind to Michelle,after all if she had been white, Obama would not have married her?

[kim]

Oh yeah, issues of academic freedom, too.

I don't know Rick. I've little doubt that she and Obama still believe all the carp that Wright ranted so wrongly about. However, their warped views have not been thought through, because they've not been challenged. I think she really still thinks that it was good to protect the little black children as she did. The problem is, she's just flat wrong.
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[PeterUK]

"It's the Chicago Way - you get informed of your choice right after it's made for you."

My! How wonderfully European.

[Porchlight]

She is the first lady -- not the president.

She is neither. She is the wife of a man running for President, and any statements she makes while campaigning on her husband's behalf are legitimate targets of scrutiny. The same goes for Cindy McCain or any other surrogate of either candidate. If Obama doesn't like that scrutiny, he can take her off the campaign trail.

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

"Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile."

Based on my years as a doctor in a treatment center, the flickering eyes and trained smile, indicate recent crack usage.

[Jane]

She is neither.

Thank you. I know voter fraud is a mainstay of the left but I nearly choked when I read that.

And Michelle certainly did cause deaths. It only take one sexual encounter to spread that particular cervical cancer virus. A smart woman, would have done everything she could to have her community get the vaccine first.

[PeterUK]

"Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile."

"No thanks,I'm trying to give them up",I replied.

[TN]

Michelle Obama is a CIA agent. Just like those gansta rappers.

Down with whitey!

[R C Dean]

Like many urban hospitals, the medical center’s emergency room becomes clogged with people who need primary care. So Mrs. Obama trained counselors, mostly local blacks, to hand out referrals to health clinics lest black patients felt they were being shooed away.

This practice frequently results in violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, unless run very, very carefully.

Of the two examples they gave, one is of questionable legality, and the other of questionable morality.

Jeebus H, this is Michelle's good side?

[Rick Ballard]

Jane,

A smart woman would but a political woman in that particular milieu would recognize the opportunity to seize upon the issue precisely as Mrs. Obama did. I have no opinion concerning her intelligence but she is certainly sharp enough to have turned her seat upon the Hyde Park Historical into a mansion (with a dab of crooked help) and she's been at the Senator's side for every worm turn of his career.

Killing constituents is just one of those unfortunate exigencies along the progressive path. It's very common within the progressive fiefs and that is where I disagree with Kim about Mrs. Obama's stance not having been "thought through". If accretion of political power is the sole objective (and it is) then her stance has been thought through perfectly - for IL-2. The test is whether the random killing which is very acceptable within IL-2 can be transferred to the country as a whole.

[bgates]

Jeebus H, this is Michelle's good side?
In keeping with the JOM style guide, that should be "Jeebus 57".

[MayBee]

Does this mean she probably heard Rev Wright's Tuskegee sermon?

[PeterUK]

"Michelle, you're hell.
These aren't words that go together well,
My Michelle.

[Porchlight]

Coincidentally PUK, it's Paul McCartney's birthday today.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

She is the first lady....

In your dreams.

[avepa]

I agree with you porchlight. She is NOT a FIRST LADY. Hussein Obama HAS NOT BEEN ELECTED AS PRESIDENT. Michelle Obama believes she has the power to (because she thinks she has the position) command the hospital to change their research agenda re treatment or utilizing the drugs on black school girls. We are already in the 21st century as compared to that time when they did the Tuskegee Syphilis Research and medical professionals now are not as barbaric as some of them were. She thinks too high of herself to override decisions which are not in her field of studies. She thinks white doctors will ruin the lives of black girls? Who is the racist here now?

[windansea]

I've yet to have heard a rational explanation why Michele O recieved a 200% raise at the hospital after Barrack was elected Senator

Is this a distraction?

trolls are invited to chime in and explain the new politics of hope and change

[bad]

Is it legal to conduct medical trials on minors? IIRC trials are only conducted on adults. Anybody got a quick answer while I try to find out?

[windansea]

I just have to quote Captain Ed at Hotair, Obama supporters are welcome to explain

In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine’s upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn’t want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.
“Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA “devastating” and “a big mistake,” despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? “Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself,” he answered.
Keeping track of Obama’s positions feels like being a spectator at a table tennis match. First he wants meetings with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (among others) without preconditions, then he only wants them if they agree to stop sponsoring terrorism and funding militias in Iraq, which sounds a lot like a “precondition” to everyone but Barack Obama. He wants to pull all the troops out of Iraq, but then tells the Iraqi foreign minister that he will be the second coming of John McCain. He tells AIPAC that he wants an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and then tells the Palestinians that he wants to divvy it up if that’s what they want.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/18/nafta-dancer-now-says-he-used-overheated-rhetoric/

[kim]

bad, there must be a way to do so. What's really tough to do is clinical trials on pregnant women. I imagine with minors there must be redoubled parental education and consent, and no doubt that of the child, also.
============================

[kim]

windansea, this is the sort of stuff I mean when I say they have not thought things through. He is baritonic, can smile winningly, read a teleprompter like he believes what it says, but he is whack.
================================

[Rick Ballard]

What is the ethical difference between Roosevelt's Public Health Service denying the men involved in the Tuskegee Study the possibility of giving informed consent to be part of a study in 1932 and Michelle Obama's denial of the possibility for girls and their parents to give informed consent to be part of a clinical trial today?

I mean, aside from the fact that there was no actual cure for syphilis available in 1932 when Roosevelt allowed the Tuskegee Study to be publicly financed. I suppose there is some slight difference due to the fact that the HPV vaccine trials provide some degree of possibility, if not certainty, regarding a positive outcome.

[Topsecretk9]

More on the Democrats Culture of Greed and Corruption...Dollar Bill is running for re-election. Meanwhile ANOTHER of his siblings has plead guilty

The sister of indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson pleaded guilty to concealing a crime on Wednesday, the fourth relative of the Louisiana lawmaker to become entangled in the family's legal troubles.

Brenda Jefferson, 52, helped defraud several nonprofit organizations by concealing and failing to report the activities of two of her siblings, Betty Jefferson and Mose Jefferson, and her niece, Angela Coleman, according to court documents.

Federal prosecutors in New Orleans recently charged the three other relatives with conspiring to steal more than $600,000 from organizations they set up to help at-risk and disadvantaged youth.

[Ann]

If you read this puff piece carefully, Evil WHITE DOCTORS were going to ONLY test BLACK GIRLS. I don't believe the premise in the first place.

And to add to that, Superwoman Michelle Obama in her position as VP of Community Affairs saved the day all by herself because it summoned the specter of the Tuskegee experiment.

The Tuskegee experiment that Rev. Wright and Farrakhan use to blame America for every perceived black injustice.

[Sara]

So do I have this straight? Participation in the study for blacks is some kind of nefarious racial experimentation on them, but not for the white girls? She figures letting them be the guinea pigs is just "honky" dory? Is she also advocating the young black women not get the vaccine, thereby insuring that there will be a bigger drain on resources when the larger percentage of them develop the cervical cancer the vaccine is designed to prevent?

[Aaron]

I second windandsea's question:

How did she get the 300K salary?

[kim]

Hey, Aaron, anybody who can overrule the academicians in an approved clinical study is worth twice that. That is some powerful woman.
====================================

[kim]

Hey, University of Chicago School of Medicine, do you realize what a joke she has made you out to be?
=============================

[clarice]

Aaron--all I know is that the hospital got it's money worth--shortly after the raise O earmarked a million$ to it.

[Neo]

Democrats call for the Nationalization of oil companies.

This is gonna cost us. There hasn't been a new refinery built in 30 years so just to keep up they are going to have to build more. So all you environmentalists out there .. beware .. you won't have those "big oil" companies to take to court any more .. you will have the power of the US Congress undermining all your efforts from the get go.

Can you say "immunity" ? I knew that you could.

And here I expected them to call for the seizure of the records at the centers for ICE in Atlanta and Chicago (do I know somebody from there ? Hmmm).

Besides .. once that take control of the refineries, who are they going to blame ? Themselves ? Yeah sure .. it's a bluff.

[kim]

There are rumours, Neo, of big news coming out in the next couple of weeks about climate that will effect the energy markets. I don't know what it is, or if it is hype, but someone is claiming that the weather patterns in the Pacific have changed in the last month like they haven't changed for 70 years.

Developing.....................
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