Michelle Obama

Betsy Newmark thinks Michelle Obama's speech will impress those who only know about her "what she said yesterday".  Memory aides are provided.

Tiger Hawk rounds up the round-ups and opines:

First Lady Michelle Obama would be a dramatic, jarring, revealing, awakening, slap in the face for Americans who want their first lady a certain way. That might be just what we need.

Too bad they're such lefties.

I gave her speech a pass - I figured the professional image consultants would do a fine job preparing something go her to read.

KVETCH, KVETCH:  Even the NY Times can't keep this quiet:

DENVER — When her husband ran for Congress in 2000, Michelle Obama groused so much about handshaking and fund-raising that Arthur Sussman, then her boss at the University of Chicago, finally asked if she truly could not find a single thing about campaigning to enjoy.

Mrs. Obama thought for a moment. Visiting so many living rooms had given her some new decorating ideas, she allowed.

Eight years later, the once reluctant campaigner is at the center of a multimedia charm offensive that may be the most closely managed spousal rollout in presidential campaign history. On Monday night, Mrs. Obama delivered a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention, preceded by an intricately made biographical video, a touch usually afforded to candidates, not their wives.

Even Obama, in The Audacity of Hope, mentioned that it is often raining in Michelle's world.  But not last night!

RICHARD COHEN:

The transformation of Michelle Obama from a bracingly proud contemporary woman -- mother, wife, career woman -- into a prime time Betty Crocker was sad to see.

He liked the Sister Grim better angry.  This wanted-to-be-fawning-but-couldn't New Yorker profile should bring back happier memories.

Comments

[kim]

This gull is not a happy camper.
===================

[MikeS]

I could probably put up with Michelle if her husband didn't want to bring back all the old liberal policies that failed when we tried them in the 60s and 70s.

Obama doesn't seem to have any new ideas. The civilian defense force is a new idea for us, but another guy tried it in the 40s.

[Danube of Thought]

Anybody seen any ratings for last night's show?

[anduril]

clarice, Rick Ballard,

I've had trouble keeping up with things. I only this morning got around to reading the Spengler article you both recommended, and enjoyed it. Very pithy:

Contrary to the hyperventilation of policy analysts on American news shows, the West has no vital interests in Georgia. It would be convenient from Washington's vantage point for oil to flow from the Caspian Sea via Georgia to the Black Sea, to be sure, but nothing that occurs in Georgia will have a measurable impact on American energy security. It is humiliating for the US to watch the Russians thrash a prospective ally, but not harmful, for Georgia never should have been an ally in the first place.

...

Washington looks all the sillier for its failure to anticipate a Russian action that Moscow signaled months in advance.

...

Forget the Kosovo Albanians, the South Ossetians, the Abkhazians, Saakashvili and the Dalai Lama. These are relics of an older world that might deserve their own theme park, but not their own state. Precisely what are 3.8 million freedom-loving Georgians supposed to contribute to American strategic interests with its US$2 billion a year of exports consisting (according to the Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook) of "scrap metal, wine, mineral water, ores, vehicles, fruits and nuts"? Georgia's hope was to lever its geographical position on the Russia border by making itself useful to the American military.

If it had not been for America's insistence on installing a gang of trigger-happy pimps and drug-pushers in Kosovo, Russia might have responded less ferociously to the flea bites on its southern border. Make no mistake: the American-sponsored Kosovo regime is the dirtiest anywhere in postwar history. Writing in the Spiegel magazine website last April 24 , Walter Mayr described Kosovo as "a country ruled by corruption and organized crime". For example, Mayr reports,

Ramush Haradinaj is a former KLA commander who later became prime minister of UN-administered Kosovo. His indictment in The Hague consisted of 37 charges, including murder, torture, rape and the expulsion of Serbs, Albanians and gypsies in the weeks following the end of the war in 1999. Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the UN War Crimes Tribunal, called him a "gangster in uniform". He returned to Kosovo this spring, after his acquittal on April 3.

Would that EITHER candidate showed a little of that insight. And that's what the supreme leader of the crunchy cons is saying this morning--along with some actually pretty good insights into the American psycho--woops--psyche: We Are Not All Georgians Now.

Or is something deeper going on here? Andrew Bacevich, the Boston University professor of international relations, argues in his critically important forthcoming book, The Limits of Power, that on national security matters, there's no fundamental difference between the parties.

Dr. Bacevich, a military veteran and father of a soldier killed in Iraq, has distinguished himself as a conservative critic of the Iraq war and, more generally, what he calls the "national security ideology" governing U.S. foreign policy on a bipartisan basis. In his book, he argues that presidents and presidential candidates of both parties, in the post-World War II era, have won and maintained power marketing the belief that America is a providential instrument for the spread of righteousness throughout the world.

This ideology, broadly shared by the American people, "serves as a device for sharply narrowing the range of policy debate," he writes. Argue for the proposition that not every fight across the globe is properly America's, and you set yourself up for being called soft on tyranny. Who wants to vote for a squish?

...

Dr. Bacevich said, "What neither of these candidates will be able to, I think, accomplish is to persuade us to look ourselves in the mirror, to see the direction in which we are headed." That direction, he went on, is deeper into the hole of debt and foreign entanglements involving an overstretched U.S. military. We prefer to believe the romantic image of ourselves and our country and to deal with the world as we wish it were rather than as it is.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a crunchy con. However, Bacevich's point was one I had in mind when I posted that link yesterday--the business about Americans as fundamentally "conservative." Is the idea of America as "a providential instrument for the spread of righteousness throughout the world" part of that "conservative" constellation of ideas? I suspect so. And I think it's a pernicious idea.

Lots to do today.

[Jane]

Ya gotta give her points for standing by her man.

[sbw]

Morarji Desai lost the election to lead India twice. After the second time someone asked him why he was not desolated by the loss. He is reported to have said, "If you cannot be happy in the most difficult of times, you will never be happy."

Michelle will never be happy. Neither in good times nor bad.

She doesn't know what she has. She doesn't know what she could accomplish. She doesn't know what she should accomplish.

She is no Barbara Bush. No Eleanor Roosevelt.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

See me bodyguarding Michelle Malkin at the Denver Mint.

[anduril]

Hmmmm, Spengler is hard on American politicians in Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess. But I like the chess v. monopoly metaphor:

On the night of November 22, 2004, then-Russian president - now premier - Vladimir Putin watched the television news in his dacha near Moscow. People who were with Putin that night report his anger and disbelief at the unfolding "Orange" revolution in Ukraine. "They lied to me," Putin said bitterly of the United States. "I'll never trust them again." The Russians still can't fathom why the West threw over a potential strategic alliance for Ukraine. They underestimate the stupidity of the West.

American hardliners are the first to say that they feel stupid next to Putin.

...

The fact is that all Russian politicians are clever. The stupid ones are all dead. By contrast, America in its complacency promotes dullards. A deadly miscommunication arises from this asymmetry. The Russians cannot believe that the Americans are as stupid as they look, and conclude that Washington wants to destroy them. That is what the informed Russian public believes, judging from last week's postings on web forums, including this writer's own.

...

The Russians know (as every newspaper reader does) that Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili is not a model democrat, but a nasty piece of work who deployed riot police against protesters and shut down opposition media when it suited him - in short, a politician in Putin's mold. America's interest in Georgia, the Russians believe, has nothing more to do with promoting democracy than its support for the gangsters to whom it handed the Serbian province of Kosovo in February.

Again, the Russians misjudge American stupidity. Former president Ronald Reagan used to say that if there was a pile of manure, it must mean there was a pony around somewhere. His epigones have trouble distinguishing the pony from the manure pile. The ideological reflex for promoting democracy dominates the George W Bush administration to the point that some of its senior people hold their noses and pretend that Kosovo, Ukraine and Georgia are the genuine article.

Think of it this way: Russia is playing chess, while the Americans are playing Monopoly. What Americans understand by "war games" is exactly what occurs on the board of the Parker Brothers' pastime. The board game Monopoly is won by placing as many hotels as possible on squares of the playing board. Substitute military bases, and you have the sum of American strategic thinking.

America's idea of winning a strategic game is to accumulate the most chips on the board: bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, a pipeline in Georgia, a "moderate Muslim" government with a big North Atlantic Treaty Organization base in Kosovo, missile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, and so forth. But this is not a strategy; it is only a game score.

Chess players think in terms of interaction of pieces: everything on the periphery combines to control the center of the board and prepare an eventual attack against the opponent's king. The Russians simply cannot absorb the fact that America has no strategic intentions: it simply adds up the value of the individual pieces on the board. It is as stupid as that. But there is another difference: the Americans are playing chess for career and perceived advantage. Russia is playing for its life, like Ingmar Bergman's crusader in The Seventh Seal.

You can disagree with Spengler in detail, but I think he has the big picture approximately right: Russian cooperation is in our interest and is a doable thing--their interests are not that different than ours. They don't want a nuclear Iran, and they know that China covets Siberia. If only the US were smart enough to act like a friend, instead of slapping away Russia in favor of "a gang of trigger-happy pimps and drug-pushers in Kosovo."

[kim]

Oh, pshaw. Leave out the 'providential' and what is the matter with spreading righteousness, as well as sweetness and light? Sounds lovingly pernicious to me.

Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.
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[anduril]

Here's a fascinating Der Spiegel article re NATO politics from a German perspective (long): BERLIN'S SHIFTING POLICY.

This one is problematic, but a few points are worth considering: Dropping the Ball on Russia Policy. After discounting most conventional reasons for why Russia did what it did, the authors leave us wondering--then why did they do it? Just because they could get away with it? Not likely. But they have their points, too...

Outta here.

[Jim]

Wow, Charlie! Well done.

[kim]

Mr Greenshirt, Charlie, may find himself the recipient of a criminal charge and absolutely zero support from anyone, if he was, in fact, provoking violence, as it appears. It is peaceable assembly that is protected.
==================

[BumperStickerist]

I thought Michelle's performance was fine.

She scored 8.0-8.5 with a degree of difficulty of about 0.9

The only way she could have blown that speech would have to either walk out on-stage wearing bandoliers or if she went all Sally Field on the audience and broke down in tears.

But, let's let noted racist Chris Rock have his say:

----------------------------

Barack has a handicap the other candidates don’t have: Barack Obama has a black wife.

And I don’t think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it!

A black woman can be president, no problem. First lady? Can’t do it. You know why?

Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship. Just imagine telling your black wife that you’re president?

‘Honey, I did it! I won! I’m the president.’

‘No, we the president! And I want my girlfriends in the Cabinet! I want Kiki to be secretary of state! She can fight!"

-----------------------

[kim]

Wow, even Pielke Pere has an article about the narrow view of climate science being communicated to the nations' physics teachers. See at climatesci.org
==================================

[sbw]

Anduril, you have discovered one of my shortcomings. My attention span is several inches shorter than your comments. Perhaps there is a way present your substance in a pithy fashion with outside references to shore up the argument.

Ah, but the universe does not revolve around me.

[beth]

Michelle Obama has soul and is not afraid to show it! Her speech last night at the DNC ranks up there with the best America has ever heard.

[Sue]

Beth,

You have to be a parody of the left.

[kim]

beth, does that mean she is a 'soul sister'?
=========================

[AdrianS]

Mr. Phillip J. Berg, a Pennsylvania attorney, has filed a lawsuit/complaint against Barack Hussein Obama claiming that Obama is NOT a U.S. natural born citizen.

Hear his discussion:
http://www.plainsradio.com/

Complaint and details:
http://www.nextgenerationcorp.com/NextGenBlog/?p=43

[Danube of Thought]

I thought this thread was supposed to be about Michelle Obama.

The universe doesn't revolve around me either, SBW, but I share your shortcoming.

[sbw]

Obviously my attention span has been shortened by the real work of managing our newspaper. (Perhaps that's why I suggested Anduril tighten it up.) But I could also only watch 1:30 of the video of guerilla theater at the Mint before clicking the stop button and retreating from it.

Why? Because the scene was no place for Michelle Malkin, or Charlie, or any journalist. Journalism provides a means of positive -- useful -- feedback. The situation only lent itself to negative feedback -- like the squeal when a microphone gets too close to a speaker.

In the Mint case, the camera and reporter are the focus for the spontaneous creation of an event that is noise, not news.

I will not be part of it.

[The Ace]

Cheers and swoons for the "liberal lion" of the Senate who began as the son of the man who wanted to appease Hitler, cheated at Harvard, drove a young woman to her death, split his party in 1980, and was up to his eyeballs in the William Kennedy Smith case.

Great times!

[Jane]

Her speech last night at the DNC ranks up there with the best America has ever heard.

What part did you like best Beth?

[MayBee]

In the Mint case, the camera and reporter are the focus for the spontaneous creation of an event that is noise, not news.

I will not be part of it.

People who willfully create that kind of scene tend to be the same people who think America is just wretched. I would think so too, if I surrounded myself with anger and noise and heat with no real goal but to create anger, noise, and heat.
Leave me out of it. Direct me to the happy place. I'll try to solve problems from there.

[Rick Ballard]

OT - Edward Cardinal Egan's Response to Speaker Pelosi

On topic - I wonder what type of coaching and training achieved this very decent result by Michelle? I also wonder if it will hold up.

[MayBee]

In the way that Obama's trip to Europe garnered him praise from the left that he "looked like" a Commander-in-Chief, I say that Michelle's speech made her "look like" a happy first lady.

This Democratic campaign season has been one giant casting call.

[LH]

What part did you like best ?
OH OH OH I know this one, Try this. Snicker

Michelle Obama said something that peeked my curiousity. She said:

"Barack stood up that day," talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods, "and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be..."

And, "All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be."

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals:

"The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be."

Hat Tip Andy Bryant and Gateway Pundit

[MayBee]

On topic - I wonder what type of coaching and training achieved this very decent result by Michelle? I also wonder if it will hold up.

Rick, she's smart and she knows what she has to do.
Frankly, how low is the bar set when talking about loving your family is an earth-shattering accomplishment?

[Enlightened]

"What part did you like best Beth?"

I liked the part where she kept saying "see". Preachers do that a lot, see. Funny that. She was very practiced, see. She also made sure she kept her body langauge in check. See, she was pretty close to throwing her balled fist in the air a few times, she kind of had a boxer's rhythm going on, see. Kind of a long rhythm, along with the steppin' n punchin', see.

Anyway, I was not impressed Michelle Ov2.

[bgates]

bodyguarding Michelle Malkin
Lucky for her nobody brought up immigration, or Charlie would have let them have her.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Figures. Michelle Obama Quotes Lines From "Rules For Radicals" In Her DNC Convention Speech

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

My paraphrase of Dennis Miller's take on Michelle's speech;

She said she'd had a wonderful childhood thanks to the sacrifices of her father. She got to go to Princeton and Harvard Law School, and ended up with a good job. She has a wonderful husband and kids.

We need to change all this.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Michelle Obama did okay. She showed little passion, little excitement, her applause was polite but lukewarm, and she didn't leave much that is memorable after a 24 hour news cycle. But she did adhere to the first rule of do no harm.

[Soylent Red]

SBW and DoT...

I'm still trying to figure out the ins and outs of Greasemonkey, but it looks like it might be a fix for our common attention span problem.

On topic...

This Michele will not hold up. She's putting on a public face but has 40+ years of angst and rage percolating behind the mask. It's going to bubble out unless they keep her locked up.

So plan on seeing less of Bulldoggy until November.

I'm not complaining about that either.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

I thought it was really disingenuous of her to sound like she left her high paying attorney job to take a lesser job in the community and then not go on in her bio. to mention that she then left that to take a job that pays her over $300,000 a year.

[tina]

The laugh line of her speech (or puke-worthy line) is this:

"His word is his bond".

What a bunch of malarkey.

[Porchlight]

Posted this on the other thread - McCain +2 per Gallup today, 46-44. First time McCain has taken the lead since June. Major bad news for Obama - talk about negative bounce.

Also related - this level of coverage in WaPo means Dems are worried bigtime:

For Those From Swing States, The Watchword Is . . . Worry

[JM Hanes]

Rick:

"I wonder what type of coaching and training achieved this very decent result by Michelle?"

Eric Holder was there to take on the VP search. Caroline Kennedy S. was there to take on Michelle.

[Jane]

"His word is his bond"

Sure it is - right up til the expiration date!

[Enlightened]

Well, like a true lefty, she has nary an original thought to work with. How do these libs keep track of which playbook is current?

[Rick Ballard]

"Frankly, how low is the bar set when talking about loving your family is an earth-shattering accomplishment?"

MayBee,

What's the world record height for limbo? I was just wondering whether negative or positive reinforcemnt was used - you know - was someone holding up a shock collar in the wings? Or was it an Hermes scarf?

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

American Issues Project Responds to Obama Campaign’s Efforts to Compel TV Stations, Government to Censor Ad

[Enlightened]

"His word is his bond"

Heh. Is that the bond of the day? Or the bond of the minute? Last month's bond? His bond in 2005? His bond has flipped so many times, maybe he needs extra strength Polident.

[sbw]

His word is his bond, and his bond declined 2% in value overnight.

[bio mom]

Cute kids and cuddly animals are always a hit with Americans. However, the bump from it will fade once the Bush-hating begins to be shown on the networks too. They should have had her speak last, not first.

Today's Gallup Tracking Poll: McCain46, Obama44. First time in over 3 months with a McCain lead.

Joe Biden really worked wonders for Obama!

[kim]

This is deja vu all over again, Sara. Remember Kerry trying to keep the TV stations from running the Swiftie ads, and the bookstores from selling the book?
====================================

[MayBee]

Were our live bloggers commenting on the drunk-seemingness of the speakers last night?
From Politico:

August 26, 2008
Categories: Antics
Blind item

Which official was supposed to speak, but got "sick" and had to bail? Apparently he got sick on the stage during rehearsal.

The official excuse was "scheduling conflicts," but, really, how many scheduling conflicts for a speaker can there be? Isn't that the No. 1 priority?

Anyway, prior to the incident, this official was seen at a dinner party with an open bar — ahem. "He is known to have a few liquid refreshments," tattles one source. Maybe the altitude got to him?

[centralcal]

"Caroline Kennedy S. was there to take on Michelle."

I think Oprah is roaming around Denver too, somewhere. The first thing I thought when I saw Michelles hair last night - very bouncy, very shiny - was that it looked just like an Oprah "do."

I think what we saw last night was just the "Oprah-fication" of Michelle. But, it won't last - Michelle will burst through eventually.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Kim: Yes I remember well. The Dems. want a totalitarian state so much, they get ahead of themselves and start thinking we already have one. That is why they project so much about "W" and Cheney. They cannot believe that all Americans aren't as nasty, sneaky, underhanded, and dictatorial as they are. They cannot understand why the great unwashed stupid masses don't accept their superiority and throw roses at their feet and shout "hiel" as they walk by.

[anduril]

Hmmmmm. Even the Euros are starting to get it: Why Obama looks vulnerable. Hey, what happened? This was linked in its entirety this morning.