The New Michelle Obama

Interesting piece on her past, and how to repackage her as someone, as the story says, "likable."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/us/politics/18michelle.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp&adxnnlx=1213764814-02S1PPkbKHRkrLglCp5yDw

 

I stopped at the lede. "A trained smile"? How do you know whether a smile is genuine or not?

 

No politician, nor any politician's wife, has a genuine smile. It's all rote memory.

 

Thanks for the link, Alma.

The right wing wants to charicature Michelle as the "angry black woman" because they think it will turn white people off to her. And all they had to do is wait for the right out-of-context sound bite to make it plausible. The truth is, these are good people who have worked hard and don't deserve the way they're being treated by the racist fringe of the GOP.

 

Yeah, what he said.

My goodness. Can we (all of America) please, for the love of all that is good and decent, make this a race that has nothing at all to do with the color of a person's skin? Please?

That is all I ask.

And that is all I will ever say about politics on this board again.

 

I like Michelle Obama. I can actually visualize her and her hubby having sex. Can't do that with all that many politicians. . .

 

I would LOVE to see that as the new TV ad campaign.

 

LOL!! I guess you noticed that pat from Obama on the small her back, right after he gave her that terrorist fist jab.

It had "you I'm getting some tonight" written all over it.

 

I hear you. They pulled the same crap with some guy on the Brooklyn Dodgers back in 1947. He was black. Big deal.

 

Great article. She'd make a great V-President,

 

This is crazy. Michelle Obama grew up in South Shore as it moved from overwhelmingly white to overwhelmingly black, thanks to redlining, white flight and real-estate scare tactics. Given the traditional racial politics and division in Chicago, she has probably heard the n-word directed at her more than anyone will ever know. She grew up only a few miles from white, city-worker neighborhoods that emerged as the veritable oases for white Chicago, who made it clear that any black people around better be out of town by sundown. In Michelle Obama's time growing up in South Shore, the nearby steel mills that provided most of the jobs to that area of the city collapsed and left thousands out of work. The neighborhood was never in total disrepair like others, but there was a lot of disinvestment even though it was often described as black middle-class. She had to overcome a lot of stuff -- and judging by her college thesis, even those in her own community -- to get as far as she has.

And people wonder why she doesn't smile more?