Michelle Obama’s America vs. mine.
Listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, Feb. 29, 2008
Here’s a quote that has been bugging me.
“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”
If you haven’t heard, the speaker was Michelle Obama to a campaign crowd in Wisconsin week before last.
Well, Paul, give her a break. She didn’t really mean it like that. She’s not the politician. She’s not really in the business of giving speeches. It just came out wrong.
Well, not so fast. Because she said it again and this time we have it on tape.
Before we break this quote down, let’s make an assumption. Let’s assume that the candidate, Michelle Obama’s husband, who wants to be your president, is OK with it.
We must make that assumption because neither he nor his campaign has done anything to tone it down. No one in the Obama campaign has said, “Oh, of course Michelle Obama is proud of her country. She was simply trying to make a point about the amazing significance of having a black man in serious contention for the presidency for the first time in American history.”
Obama is standing by the quote so you can only assume that he agrees with it.
Michelle Obama was born in 1964 so her adult life dates from 1982. Let’s ask her about the following:
As a direct result of America’s principled insistence, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. When that happened, millions of German citizens who had been prisoners in their own country, the unwilling subjects of an occupying Soviet army, were set free.
Was Michelle Obama not proud?
Related to the Berlin Wall is the end of the Cold War that gave birth to it. For nearly four and a half decades, the world had lived with the very real possibility that the United States and the Soviet Union could wind up in a nuclear exchange that would end the lives of countless millions and perhaps bring an end to all civilized society.
Again, as a result of America’s principled insistence, the Soviet Union gave up on its vision of world hegemony and quietly went out of business. The U.S. won the Cold War without ever firing a shot.
Was Michelle Obama not proud?
Since Michelle Obama’s coming of age, the office of President of the United States has changed hands three times. In all three cases, that changing took place in the open air at a public event according to the rule of law. On those January the twentieths, the armed forces that obeyed the orders of one Commander-in-Chief at 11:59 a.m., began immediately obeying the orders of another Commander-in-Chief one minute later.
Does that not make Michelle Obama proud?
When Michelle Obama was born, the president of the United States still called people of her race negroes. Today, the president of the United States calls one woman of her race, “Madame Secretary.”
Is Michelle Obama not proud?
Peggy Noonan asked the question. Are the Obamas snobs? During their privileged Ivy-league educations, did anyone tell them anything about what normal Americans think?
Are the majority of Americans without hope, as Michelle Obama suggests? If that is so, how do you explain the growth right here in our own community? Every business that opens, every house that gets built, every spade of earth that gets turned on a construction jobsite is an expression of hope.
So is every first day of kindergarten and every graduation day.
Is pride in the America that Michelle Obama wants her husband to lead so tenuously held by those whom Barack Obama would have vote for him? Is America suddenly good because he has a shot at winning the presidency? What, then, is America if he loses?
All my adult life, I have believed that America is exceptional. Flawed yes. But exceptional in all of history. Ronald Reagan won huge majorities by seeing America as the “Shining City on the Hill.”
I believe that America is the kind of country that on the whole acts as an agent of good in the world. The kind of country that will spend billions of its own treasure on the Marshall Plan, rebuilding its enemies rather than plundering them. The kind of country that will abolish slavery on its own and by increments, put behind it the corrosive forces of bigotry.
I believe America is a good place filled with good people.
I’d like my president, and my first lady, to believe that as well.
I totally agree with your thoughts on Obama, and on most other things as well. I had forgotten about the old KLIF days when the owner would have his own commentary, but I liked that to. Rush and Glenn Beck are favorites here. I could do without Paul Harvey, but we don’t want old dudes to retire I guess, except for me. I retired after 31 years of teaching, and now bring home the unbelieveable sum of over $1600 dollars a month.
Dan Minor
I AGREE WITH YOUR COMMENTS ON THE OBAMAS. I AM A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN THE OPPORTUNITY THAT FREE MARKET OFFERS. THE PROSPECTS OF MAKING MY LIFE, MY FAMILY’S LIFE AND THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE THAT WORK FOR ME BETTER, ARE WORTH THE RISK AND THE HEADACHES. HOWEVER IF THE DEMOCRATS GET CONTROL OF THE NATION THEY WILL GIVE IT AWAY, ALONG WITH THE HOPE, OPPORTUNITY AND PROSPECTS OF A BETTER LIFE THAT THIS NATION WAS FOUNDED ON. I BELIVE THE OBAMAS COULD SET THIS NATION BACK 75 YEARS. HE HAS PROMISED TO FURNISH EVERONE WITH NATIONAL HEALTH CARE (JUST LIKE CANADA), JOBS (JUST LIKE THE DEPRESION), AND A HOUSE FOR EVERYONE (JUST LIKE CASTRO). WE ARE BECOMING A SOCIALIST NATION AND WE AS A NATION HAD BETTER WAKE UP! NOTHING IS FOR FREE! OBAMA IS NOT GIVING US ANYTHING HE IS TAKING OUR GREAT NATION FROM US.
I as a rule do not watch the news or anything media-related, published in press, broadcast, etc.
I do watch Bill Mahr, “That O’reilly Guy” and Comedy Central.
No, I do not vote. I do not feel qualified to make that kind of a decision.
Michelle Obama?? Uck, Her face was blasted over the front cover of some magazine so I decided to read it while my car was serviced.
She focused her attention on recruiting “””BLACK UNDERGRADS AND BRINGING THEM TO PRINCETON””””
WHAT???
HOW THE HECK IS THAT NOT RACIST?????
IS SHE NOT SEGREGATING BLACKS FROM WHITES?? WHY ISN’T **THIS*** CONSIDERED A “HATE CRIME?”
I really think the good ol US should ask that her citizens acquire a permit to be eligible to vote.
DO YOU KNOW THAT SAFF MEMBERS CAN REGISTER EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE PEOPLE AT THE FRONT COUNTER IN THE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTERS???
OKAY, OKAY,
Would someone please explain why it even matters if the popular vote doesn’t count.. then why should we bother voting???
Thanks!
~M~
I have listened to, read, discussed this issue with Mrs. Obama’s statement about being proud. I understand the sentiment of some of those that would look at the statement as saying that one is just now proud or not proud of other things that have happen in our lives to be proud about. I have taken the statement a little different than the way it is/was discribed here and other venues. I took the statement, and I do feel the same way, that being proud of a time in our lives where America is on the verge of possibly electing someone other than a white male. This time in our lives is one that I would have never thought possible. We have always had a white male president from the beginning of our country and for that child who is told they can be president when they grow up, may not just count for a white male child and other children can really see the thought of them being president is not just a wink and a nod to say ‘yeah, right tell them what they want to hear’.
If it is the first time in her life that she is proud…so what. Just because you have a lot to be proud of does not mean everyone is proud about the same things. You mention Secretary Rice as a person to be proud of and I would agree however, she was not elected she was appointed. This is a huge difference. When you have an appointment it goes to congress for confirmation. This is very different than having the voters across America say they want x person.
This is a very different time in our country that we have never had before. This is the first time in our country where we may not have the status quo for president, that is something to be very proud of for the first time in our lives.
Michelle and Barrack Obama are too far to the left for me. They remain enigmas and it is what we do not know that will hurt us.
I think that it is clear the Michelle Obama believes that she can only have pride in America if there is an American of African descent in a postition to win the white house. My view would be that if Obama looses she will make it all about race and not about experience. I read her thesis and honestly I think that the stigma of being black in America is her thorn in the flesh. It is my view that she has chosen to view the world in a way that relates everything to being black or white.