Obama’s Better Half

I was disappointed to read a trashy article about Michelle Obama in The Economist today. The article somehow made it through the Editorial board to be included in the July 3 print edition—a truly disturbing sign from this otherwise reputable magazine. Standards must have sunk really low at The Economist.

The article was off to a rocky start in its attempt to pigeonhole the “types” of spouses of leaders. The author averred that Michelle Obama is “somewhere between” Hillary Clinton as first lady and Denis Thatcher (or a Cindy McCain type). Whatever that means. Mrs. Obama’s assets according to the author were: “She is clever, driven, beautiful, and articulate,” and “she still finds time to be supermum.” The writer added, “Having Michelle at his side helped reassure sceptical blacks that he was one of them. Even the precise shade of her skin colour may have helped him at the polls. Famous black men often pick light-skinned or white wives. Some black women resent this.”

Famous black men often pick white wives? I do not even know if this qualifies as a strange generalization or a simply ridiculous statement. Who is the author talking about here? Besides OJ Simpson that is. I knew the article was going downhill from this point.

The columnist went on to criticize Mrs. Obama’s infamous statement of her first time being really proud of her country. S/he wrote in response, “Some Americans bristle at the implication that the only worthwhile thing any of them has done in the past quarter-century is to back Mr. Obama.” You can tell that the author was completely out of touch with America. S/he clearly did not understand why the American public (punditry) was upset with Mrs. Obama. It was not because Americans had more worthwhile things to do in the last 25 years, but rather that Michelle Obama implied that she was not proud of her country (which she probably did not mean anyway). Surely, this was a blasphemy to the FOX News gods.

Perhaps predictably, the author then found it difficult to contain her/himself and broke down into a rant:

Mrs Obama’s speeches rarely accentuate the positive. America, to her, is a “downright mean” country where families struggle to buy food, where mothers are terrified of being fired if they get pregnant and where “life for regular folks has gotten worse over the course of my lifetime”. But she was born in 1964, when Americans lived shorter, poorer lives and southern blacks couldn’t vote. Whereas her husband is magically skilled at not giving offence, Mrs Obama can be a blunt instrument. “Don’t go into corporate America,” she urges young people, denigrating what most Americans do for a living and biting the hand that pays for all the public programmes she favours. “Barack Obama will require you to work,” she says. “He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation…Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.” Some people would rather decide for themselves how to live their lives.

I do not even know where to begin. Not only is this piece poorly written. It is painfully inaccurate in its portrayal of Michelle Obama’s call for mobilization—not to mention that this was Barack Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s, and John Edwards’s ultimate message in the primaries as well. Also, I have never even heard Michelle Obama disparage corporations in context of her speeches as much as encourage young students to commit to community service work.

I was appalled that The Economist had actually published this piece. It failed to meet any decent criteria of analysis or even Op-Ed. Nevertheless, I managed to make it to the conclusion, which was consistently low in quality. After distorting her image, the author had finally offered to give Mrs. Obama a break by exclaiming, “She was always a reluctant political wife. Her husband’s crazy hours and long absences impose a hefty burden on her and on their children. In dark moments, she fears for his physical safety. And all the while, both she and her husband are subjected to maliciously false gossip online.” I have heard many sympathize with Michelle Obama’s hectic and demanding schedule as the reason for the verbal slip-ups, but never this bizarre claim that as a wife and a mother in the public light, she cannot handle it. I think Michelle Obama is a great speaker and has done just fine.  Has this author noticed how much John McCain has screwed up recently—both in words and actions? What is his excuse?

So while the article began by suggesting that Michelle Obama’s main purpose was in giving legitimacy to Barack Obama in the black community, because she is a dark-skinned African American, it concluded by deeming her his “bitter-half distraction”—now that the African American vote is “secured.”  Isn’t this article a gem?

Update: I took out the bit about proud versus really proud because I could not find a duplicate clip of the Milwaukee speech that was produced by a source aside from FOX News.  I was almost positive Michelle Obama said “really” proud in both as most news outlets have mentioned the “really proud” one, but I cannot prove it so I will not present it as a fact.