Pride (In the Name of Self-Love)
Feb 18th, 2008 at 6:15 pm by Susie
This is the second time Michelle Obama has said something really dumb (the first being her quote that “she’d have to think about it” when asked if she would work to support Clinton if she won the nomination.)
This one’s a lot more serious.
This will really turn a lot of people off. For somebody who held a highly-paid PR job, she doesn’t seem to have a clue about how things sound. Someone has to tell her this is a whole new ballgame, especially when the famously sharp Sasha Issenberg is covering her on the campaign trail. Look what he caught her saying today:
MILWAUKEE — So what did Michelle Obama think of the United States before her husband decided he wanted to run the place?
“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” she told a Milwaukee crowd today, “because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”
Those are words that will come back to haunt her.
It’s almost impossible to control the surrogates on the campaign trail, because they always seem to think the candidate isn’t aggressive enough and decide to throw a few bombs. It’s even more difficult when the person shooting off his or her mouth is the candidate’s spouse. (As Hillary Clinton can tell you.)
Voters aren’t into nuance. They just know when it sounds like someone’s attacking their country, and the Republicans will take every opportunity to remind them.
UPDATE: Ew. It’s up on Drudge. Now I feel icky. Here’s the entire quote in context:
“What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something — 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. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I’ve seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it’s made me proud.”
The thing that makes it so difficult to run for office is, you have to learn to think like a movie critic. You know how the PR companies will take a totally negative review and pull a phrase out of context? i.e. “I can’t believe the director made this piece of crap after doing a spectacular accomplishment like __________.” The quote becomes “Spectacular accomplishment!”
Whoever vetted her speech should be canned.
Come on, Susie, I haven’t felt proud of my country in a very long time. I love my country and my community, and I do what I can to improve it, but the list of shameful things that we’ve been engaged in as a country is depressingly long. I don’t think you want to be adding fuel to the right-wing intolerance machine that has given us flag-burning legislation and “America love it or leave it”.
What she said might not sell very well in many parts, but I say “Right on, Michelle. Let’s have an America we can truly be proud of.”
Yeah, but you can’t come out and SAY that on the campaign trail. The movie reviewer analogy is a good one. “Barrack’s wife hates America!” Great. Very stupid, shouldn’a said it.
Granted, she probably should have been a little more aware that a partial clip of her statement would be picked up as a Republican talking point, but it will take a hell of a lot more than that one statement to undo the distaste that George Bush leaves in people’s mouths each day that he remains in office. There are an awful lot of voters who feel just the same as she does. They want America back.
As an American Indian, I’m one of the most cynical people regarding the actions of the US government - but the government is not “my country”. My country is my friends, family, neighbors - it’s millions of people who, even prior to Barack Obama announcing his candidacy, worked hard to reject sexism, racism, classism - a whole host of isms. I can think right off the top of my head of dozens of times as an adult (I’m the same age as Ms. Obama) that I was proud of “my country”.
It was an incredibly stupid thing to say. It will be dragged out and again and again and again, particularly when Karl Rove is feeding the whisper campaign regarding Obama’s foreign father and his church’s controversial ties with Black muslims. It’s the talking point that Democrats are the party who hate America, or at least can’t find anything, other than the campaign of a single man, of which to be genuinely proud.
(Disclaimer, I, like former candidates Edwards, Kucinich, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd, do not endorse either remaining candidate.)
You know, I’ve been proud of my country. I was proud when Bill Clinton was elected, because I knew for the first time in a long time, the “N” word wasn’t going to be used in the White House.
I was proud when we intervened in the ethnic slaughter in Yugoslavia.
I was proud the way my country pulled together after the World Trade Center attacks. (Not so proud of the yellow ribbons, and not proud at all about the war.)
I was also proud that so many Americans were appalled and wanted to help after Katrina.
Oh, and I was so proud when I first heard Howard Dean say, “I want my country back.”
There’s a lot you can say about our various elected officials, but the people of this country have big hearts and I love that about them.
I’m not so cynical as to think that Michelle Obama has anything but love for her country and has high regard for what many Americans, organizations and individuals, have contributed to their communities . She was expressing a feeling of elation about being involved with a movement that she believes addresses, for the first time (whether you agree or not) the long-term needs of this country.
What she said could be spun into something other than what she meant. As a liberal I’m not going to help out the America first crowd with their xenophobic agenda.
BTW Your list is fine with the exception of the high-altitude bombing of civilian targets in Serbia which precipitated, as you should remember, a great increase in the ethnic violence in Kosovo.
If you’re willing to look at sources other than Chomsky, there was some good that came out of it. And I presume you’re not counting the systematic rape in the name of ethnic cleansing pre-bombing?
I don’t see anything better about the full quote than the extracted one. The whole thing is quite consistent, whether you interpret it gently or harshly. This isn’t a case where she or the candidate (or other surrogates) will be able to claim it’s taken out of context — they can only try to counter the harsh interpretation or argue for the blurry one.
‘As a liberal I’m not going to help out the America first crowd with their xenophobic agenda.’
Huh?
I found Michelle Obama’s statements to be deplorable and selfish.
Oh, come off it, Suzie! It’s pretty clear that you have a problem with Obama as a candidate, but to pick on his wife for saying something you yourself have been spouting since the Shrub has been in office is a little hypocritical. So now if you’re a candidate, you can’t talk like everyone else? Because if you do, some right wingnut is going to cherry pick a phrase and slime you with it? Give me a break!
“So now if you’re a candidate, you can’t talk like everyone else?”
No, you can’t. It’s like asking, “So now, just because you’re in a job interview, you have to dress differently, sit up straight and talk nice?”
The same dynamic applies: If you can’t make it through an interview loop without screwing up, we’re not about to turn you loose in an operational setting.
It just sounds stupid coming from the candidate’s spouse - and that “first time” qualification.
People do get all impassioned and hopeful about their candidate, and tend to hyperbole.
But this sound to me like, “Now that my spouse is running for office, only now can I feel proud of my country.”
Just dippy. Yeah, we all know how wonderful he is…
I do think that Obama’s supporters in general, will understand her words as simply one more person expressing how Obama’s campaign has inspired them.
I just think it’s dippy.
[...] wingnut brigade is falling over itself today because Michelle Obama is proud of her country. They think it’s a bad thing. [...]