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Yes, it is embarrassing, but I am going to say it, anyway: How glorious to have a president I can not only stand to see on television, but would have watched over Desperate Housewives, had it come to that. I kept trying to think of the last time such a thing had occurred—is it time yet? the president's going to be on!—but the answer is: never. ("For the first time in my adult life ...") A year from now, Obama will no doubt have to do more than show up and say true things grammatically, absent any mugging or winking. But tonight, he had me at "America doesn't torture.'' And when he declined to place sole blame for deregulation on Republicans. And when he said he was not very interested in having the same old tired left-right tug-of-war. So for as long as this lasts, I'm going with it.
I was a little surprised that he put Eisenhower up there with FDR and Lincoln on his list of presidential greats; Was this post-partisan politesse, or was it Eisenhower's lack of drama he admires? His warning about the military-industrial complex, maybe? Or the taste and vision of his granddaughter?
It also came as news that the first couple's 60 Minutes interviewer, Steve Kroft, was such a T-Rex: "So, you have a new dog and your mother-in-law's moving in?'' (Right, it stinks to be Obama.) But 44 put the kibosh on that and on Kroft's suggestion that Michelle's whole mom-in-chief routine is going to get old in a hurry when she's "knocking around that big house'' on Pennsylvania Avenue. "Here's one thing I know about Michelle,'' the president-elect informed him. "She's serious when she talks about being a mom; that's why our girls are so wonderful.'' It doesn't happen by accident, in other words, or in five-minute snatches of quality time. So we shouldn't judge low-income families by one standard (stay home and read aloud all day; turn off that TV!) and Ivy League graduates by another (you're home with your kids? gosh, sorry to hear that). If parenting is so important, how come Kroft and Traister and maybe most of us at some point act as if no one who could get a decent job would spend their days doing it? Obama seems proud of his wife's accomplishments as a mother, among other things—and why wouldn't he be?
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No doubt Hillary Clinton could fill Condi's high-heel boots and still have time left over to advise Michelle on what not to do as first lady. (Remember when Rice took the job almost four years ago and described her mission as building on the foreign policy achievements of the previous four? Quick work, when you think about it; wonder what she turned to after lunch?) Only, if America wanted a third Clinton administration, wouldn't it have gone for the real thing? I get that in tapping some of these Clinton folks for his transition team and new administration Obama is trying to avoid some of the mistakes the Clintons themselves made when they blew into town with their Arkansas friends and '92 campaign team and made clear they didn't need anybody to show them around or tell them anything. But at what point does this "new'' team start to seem a little too familiar with the way things have always worked and a little too much like the "old Washington'' that Obama campaigned against? I hope he doesn't forget that in both the primary and the general, voters saw experience as less important than a new direction and a new way of doing business.
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Did I say Palin in '12? Correction: Palin in '09. And did I say she'd be back? Wrong-o; she shows no sign of going away.
As for Michelle Obama, my beef with that Rebecca Traister piece about the "momification" of the next first lady is that Traister supposes Obama is in mourning for her career in hospital administration. But based on what? She likewise assumes that Obama's emphasis on her duties as mom-in-chief were hoked up only to help her hubby get elected. In her view, the only reason Obama hasn't dropped the whole schtick now that the coast is clear is that she can't risk looking like a Hillary Clinton as first lady.
Only, Michelle Obama isn't Hillary Clinton; for one thing, I believe her when she says she has no political ambitions. Not that there would be anything wrong with it if she did have, and if she changes her mind later, she's got my vote. But why is a focus on her role as a wife and mother assumed to be just for show? Is she required to regard being a hands-on mom and first spouse as small potatoes just because she's in every way an equal partner to the president-elect and attended schmantzy schools?
As satisfying as running PR and community outreach and volunteer programs for the University of Chicago Hospitals no doubt was, like Emily I have a hard time seeing the White House as a step down. Is there a woman (or man) alive who wouldn't gladly take a few years off to advise and support the president?
Can smart, strong women not choose traditional roles? Everything I know about Michelle Obama tells me that this really is her choice, not her consolation prize. And if we're not OK with that (can you say projection?) I'm not sure it's her problem.
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I am trying to decide why I don't share the distress that Rebecca Traister expresses on Salon in her thought-provoking essay about the "momification" of Michelle Obama. Traister criticizes the press for covering not her departure from her former job at the University of Chicago Hospitals, but her clothes and her kid-piloting and her propensity for domestic-art shortcuts. Traister blames the media for its lack of curiosity about what it's costing Michelle to become "an extension of her husband" and for assuming that she, not he, is the one sheperding her family through their actual move. Michelle Obama, Traister concludes, "will come to stand in more prominently than anyone could have imagined for the shortcomings of feminism."
For a bunch of reasons, this seems more off-base than on-target to me—and also premature. First of all, I don't buy the reflexive blaming of the media. Michelle Obama is putting her own motherhood and sisterhood and wifely virtue front and center. She did that in her speech at the Democratic Convention, she did it during the campaign, and she's doing it now. You can wish she didn't feel like she has to, but she surely knows what she's doing. To wit, Michelle Obama can't risk repeating Hillary Clinton's rocky first lady performance. And so she won't. The media is merely following her lead. To be fair, Traister acknowledges some of this. But she soft pedals Obama's own choices while kicking the press, which is a little convenient.
Also, don't we imagine that the Obamas made their bargain about their roles a while ago? Didn't Michelle Obama effectively stop working at her hospital job long before now? That is a real sacrifice, don't get me wrong, but on the other hand, her husband is president. That is an accomplishment with its own set of rules. It's also one that requires a team effort, and that gives Michelle Obama, as crack defensive end aka first lady, enormous power. A weird and retro form of power, to be sure, but power nonetheless. Before we knock all of that, let's give her a chance to wield it. She is promising to focus on the concerns of working women. Amen and hallelujah: If she does it and gets somewhere, that will be concretely groundbreaking in a way that all this image-obsession never is, and she'll come to represent not the shortcomings of feminism, but its strengths. Maybe Michelle Obama is the woman to channel Eleanor Roosevelt (without the misery of marital infidelity, of course).
And in the meantime, yes, she is the one honcho-ing their physical move, or at least whom to delegate it to. I hope so! Because I want my president-elect working on other pressing matters like our economic crisis. I am glad Traister reminded us that the Obamas used to have a different kind of partnership and that Michelle Obama had to work hard to make her peace with her current role. But hey, when quitting your day job gets you to the White House, how much can the rest of us rue the trade-off?
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In all the idle chatter I picked up today about which private school the Obama girls might attend (see this New York Times story for the first guesses), one thing was absent: any hint of the gossipy, snarky tone that usually descends on a first family as soon as they step foot in this insular town (especially when discussing something so ripe with humor as progressive private schools jockeying for their attention).
It's not surpising, I suppose, given the general goodwill toward them. But it does make me wonder exactly what political species they will fall into. Messiah implies eventual disappointment. He is more like a benevolent king. He has an almost old-fashioned, regal gift of making the nation's destiny seem in line with his own. Usually, when politicians give us all the credit, we see this as faux humility padding their own ambition. But when Obama repeats, over and over, "this is your victory," or "this victory belongs to you," we believe him.
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Jodi Kantor has a piece in the Times today examining our first family-elect's "acute awareness" that everything they do "will brim with symbolic value." She's mainly talking about what they will represent racially, of course. But that's not the whole story: I can't stop thinking about Michelle Obama's declaration last week that her plan was to become "mom in chief." I get that ensuring her kids have a semi-normal life inside the White House will be consuming. And I have no issue with her decision to leave her job, saying that all the attention paid and access granted to a first lady can help her accomplish more than her job could. She's right, though I did love the idea of a first lady with a full-time job—but, I admit, only for its "symbolic value." What I don't get is why, if she's aware of what she represents, and if her chief interest is helping working parents, this mom-in-chief title is acceptable.
The accepted wisdom that she had to soften her career-dynamo image to reach voters angered me. I don't think for a moment that Michelle's high-powered-working-mother story would have broken this election. Furthermore, these sorts of political trade-offs perpetuate the perception that this nation can't handle the notion of women whose work has major value, just as their parenting does. Now that Obama has won, will Michelle, aware of all she represents, choose to portray her successful career as something to celebrate, or as a dirty secret? She can be so much more than just a fashion icon if she gives up the "Mom" label and instead chooses to be the woman I fell for before the primary season stripped her of the identity. "When people ask Michelle Obama to describe herself, she doesn't hesitate. First and foremost, she is Malia and Sasha's mom," the campaign Web site says. Now that this election is over, I hope once again we'll get to see her as so much more.
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Oprah cried, Jesse Jackson cried, and John Lewis said he had no tears left. Our next first lady whispered, "I love you" to her husband, who didn't seem to want to let her go even when it was time to leave the stage. Michelle Obama's mom, Marion Robinson, was kvelling for all of them. And our next president was appropriately sober; bringing us together is going to be hard. But a little easier because the crowd that came to hear President-Elect Obama cheered readily at his bow to John McCain. When he spoke of moving people "to put their hand on the arc of history and bend it once more to the hope of a better day," I really could dare to hope that even people who can't look at him without shouting at the television might take a breath and give him a chance.
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Here's a matter that knows no party or region or class: flowers, which I must remember to teach my son are not always such a thoughtful gift. One of my dearest friends celebrated a big, big birthday last week. And what did her husband do to mark the milestone? "He went to the Kroger's for flowers,'' she said, rocked by the care and consideration that went into his offering. So to the three men reading this, don't let this be you. Flowers for no reason? Such a sure thing that if she doesn't like them, you should worry. But flowers under pressure say you are so clueless or checked-out that you might as well sign the note, "I'm either passive-aggressive, or have absolutely no imagination.'' The bigger the occasion, the better that "World's Best Mom'' mug would have gone over in comparison;as my friend said of her fool for romance, "He is beyond hope.'' (And Liza, since you wrote the book on Barack's better half, do we know what he wound up getting Michelle for their anniversary? Please do not tell me it was mums ...)
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I'll see you and raise you, Julia; I don't give a rip how much Cindy's outfit cost. Of all the phony-spumoni windows into character, the gotcha of pointing out that presidential candidates and their spouses have done well in life, and thus have nice stuff, really does nothing for me. (It's not eating arugula that makes you an elitist, or wearing diamonds that makes you Marie Antoinette, either; Cindy travels around the world doing relief work, so case closed on that front.) I just did a piece on Michelle Obama for Reader's Digest, too, and I saw where one reader had posted a complaint that if I weren't such a crazy Michelle lover, I would have pointed out the damning fact that she wears $500 Jimmy Choos! And not only that, but she sees a personal trainer! OK, duly noted, but are we really voting on shoes now? In the race for worst-shod, I guess Ralph Nader would win. :(
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I've got a bone to pick with Peggy Noonan's assessment of the Democratic Convention speeches in today's Wall Street Journal. Well, two. First, since when is Laura Bush "the most popular First Lady in modern American political history?" I know she polls well—as my husband pointed out, she reveals little, and what's not to like about things you don't know?—and I'm not sure how we're defining "modern American political history" exactly (when I Googled it, many references to the term seemed to encompass the latter half of the 20th century, if not the whole thing), but I have hard time seeing her as any Jackie O.
Second, Noonan contends that in her speech, "In order to paint both her professional life and her husband's, and in order to communicate what she feels is his singular compassion, [Michelle Obama] had to paint an America that is darker, sadder, grimmer, than most Americans experience their country to be." Seriously? Give me a break. Peggy Noonan obviously has not been laid off recently.
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I have a strange soft spot for Michelle Obama, largely because she was born in 1964, the year I was born, and because she reminds me of women I knew in college. Our generation of women were not the first to get to the Ivy League. We had a different cross to bear: We were the first to be treated as absolutely ordinary there. As Michelle's infamous senior thesis attests, some felt a residual need to rebel against the old institution anyway, struggled with the idea of themselves as "insiders," or attempted to remain "outsiders" for just a bit longer.
But most, obviously including Michelle, adjusted and moved on. All of which is a roundabout way of agreeing with Dahlia and Dana that this was a brilliant speech precisely because it avoided the sometimes grating language that Hillary might have used, and precisely because it was in fact post-feminist rather than feminist: The perfect way to address her/my generation is not to brag about how we got there first (because we didn't) but to talk honestly about the myriad ways in which we've tried or failed or managed to adjust, having arrived. Which she did, rather well.
All of that stuff about how parents try to set good examples for children was particularly well done, from Michelle as well as her brother and mother, and somehow not sick-making, as these things at conventions usually are. There, laid out for us, was an example of parents who persuaded their children to adopt their values: Would that we all could be so succesful in doing so.
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Au contraire, Emily: I think we should be mopping our brows with relief that Michelle Obama's speechwriters (or did she write it herself?) avoided the merest hint of sisterhood-is-powerful language or Hillary-identification in her speech. Sure, as a feminist it would have been satisfying to see her raise a fist in solidarity, but let's face it, this speech wasn't aimed at the likes of us. Her target, which she nailed with impressive deftness, was that vague, elusive and maddening clump of the electorate that still somehow finds Obama's wife too aggressive and scary and un-first ladylike, what with the fist-bumping and the Harvard degree and the actual opinions on policy.
Watching her bat 1.000 in every conventional first lady category--for God's sake, she's beautiful, stylish, charming, poised, maternal and warm, leaving aside for the moment her obvious accomplishments and intellect--I wanted to call up these waffling bozos in person and harass them. She's Jackie Kennedy with a working-class back story! What else do you want from the woman? Emily's remark about the speech's race subtext can't help but ring sadly true: If you don't like Michelle Obama after this speech, do you like any flavor of ice cream besides vanilla?
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Au contraire, Emily: I think we should be mopping our brows with relief that Michelle Obama's speechwriters (or did she write it herself?) avoided the merest hint of sisterhood-is-powerful language or Hillary-identification in her speech. Sure, as a feminist it would have been satisfying to see her raise a fist in solidarity, but let's face it, this speech wasn't aimed at the likes of us. Her target, which she nailed with impressive deftness, was that vague, elusive and maddening clump of the electorate that still somehow finds Obama's wife too aggressive and scary and un-First Ladylike, what with the fist-bumping and the Harvard degree and the actual opinions on policy.
Watching her bat a thousand in every conventional First Lady category--for God's sake, she's beautiful, stylish, charming, poised, maternal and warm, leaving aside for the moment her obvious accomplishments and intellect -- I wanted to call up these waffling bozos in person and harass them. She's Jackie Kennedy with a working-class back story! What else do you want from the woman? Emily's remark about the speech's race subtext can't help but ring sadly true: If you don't like Michelle Obama after this speech, do you like any flavor of ice cream besides vanilla?
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What I loved best about Michelle Obama's speech tonight was that it was fearless, but in a very different way from the fearlessness modeled by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked about law and policy and poverty, and yet she talked about her kids, her husband, and her family. And she didn't do that merely to show us that smart women are soft and cuddly on the inside. She did what everyone else in this campaign is terrified to do: She risked looking sappy and credulous and optimistic when almost everyone has abandoned "hope" and "change" for coughing up hairballs of outrage. Every Democrat in America seems to be of the view that optimism is so totally last February; that now's the time to hunker down and panic real hard. Good for Michelle for reminding us that to "strive for the world as it should be" is still cool, and for being so passionate about that fact that she looked to be near tears. Good for her for speaking from the heart when everyone else seems to be speaking from the root cellar. And if that doesn't persuade you the woman is a warrior, let me just add that true bravery is letting your 7-year-old turn the first night of the Democratic Convention into open-mic night with the big screen and the party frock. Think any man alive would have done that? Me neither.
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Michelle's master aim tonight: to knit herself to the American dream, the American story. How many times did she use those phrases? Her mother helped, with "I got to stay home with my kids," and her pursed proud mouth, listening in the crowd. Her handsome brother did, too, with his tales of her playing the piano to get him downstairs before a big basketball game. And those gorgeous girls of hers, telling the image of their dad on a huge TV screen that their mom did good. (Primetime Family Reality TV: I imagined my boys up there, one of whom might have been tempted to imagine the crowd as a mosh pit and dive, and let out a sigh of relief for Michelle when they gave up the mike.) The message was that this is a beautiful family and yet a real family. The subtext: if you still don't like them, is it just because they're black?
Michelle's second aim was slightly less successful, I think: to stand up for women's rights and concerns and in so doing to stand in for Hillary. Invoking the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage was good. So was calling out HIllary by name as a kind of American hero. But this wasn't where the passion in the speech lay. That went into the lines about being a sister, wife, mother, and into Michelle's evocation of her father. Maybe that's just fine, because it's what more of the country is listening for. And certainly it was too much to ask Michelle to single-handedly head off the much-rumored irate Hillary supporters. But if I can quibble with a woman who pulled off electrifying sincerity in her big moment, I wanted one more moment in coded feminist-speak, for the other sisters.
Also in Slate: John Dickerson examined Michelle Obama's big moment.
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In an op-ed in the Guardian this morning, Jessica Valenti, founder of the blog Feministing and author of the book Full Frontal Feminism, discusses what she believes has been the media's unfair treatment of Michelle Obama, wife of Barack. Valenti writes, "Media coverage of [Michelle] Obama has packed a nasty racism-sexism combo that is quickly becoming a national disgrace." She cites unflattering depictions of Michelle in Fox News and the National Review, and claims that some right-wing commentators (she doesn't name any specifically) have said downright racist things about the prospective first lady. She also appears to be very strung out by the now-infamous New Yorker cover of some weeks back.
Unfortunately, Valenti goes too far in her claims, mistaking lack of pundit love for Michelle for racism. Of course anyone can find examples of crazed right-wingers who say racist, offensive things about the Obamas, just as any McCainiac could look to the far left in drumming up outrageous examples of McCain hate. There has not been widespread racism toward Michelle Obama in the mainstream media. In fact, I would dare to say she's gotten away with a lot precisely because the media are afraid of being accused of racism—for instance, her rather bold assertion that this was the first time in her adult life that she was "really proud of [her] country."
In getting hung up on the race point, Valenti undermines the more important aspect of this issue, which is what constitutes the image of the American "political wife." The very term itself points to the sexism associated with the way we judge most (male) candidates' wives. There is a definite image of the political wife that these ladies are encouraged to follow, and someone like Laura Bush epitomizes this character. She's meek and well-mannered, and she has completely worthy yet completely innocuous pet causes like literacy rates. Lovely, worthy, but not exactly a firebrand. Like Teresa Heinz Kerry, who took flak in 2004 for being strong-willed and for rubbing people the wrong way, Michelle Obama defies that stereotype.
I don't particularly like Michelle Obama, because I think a lot of what she's said in this election cycle has been in poor taste (I agreed with Maureen Dowd about the butter-and-toast shtick being tiresome back in 2007). Still, if there's anything we can take away from Valenti's confused rant, it is this sense that we've been late to modernize our conception of what a candidate's wife looks like. Valenti and friends would do well to focus their energies on that important discussion as opposed to the race-card fallback.
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Emily, you and Michelle Obama aren't the only ones who love The Brady Bunch. As I read that nugget in Jodi Kantor's New York Times story this morning, I couldn't help thinking about another politician with a Brady connection.
Allow me to quote from that oracle of our modern age, Wikipedia. This is from the entry on Louisiana's current governor:
According to family lore, Jindal adopted the name "Bobby" from the character Bobby Brady after watching The Brady Bunch television series at age four. He has been known by that name ever since-as a civil servant, politician, student,and writer--though legally his name remains Piyush Jindal.
C'mon, John McCain, please name Gov. Bobby Jindal to be your running mate!
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We are both Brady Bunch addicts, I learn from Jodi Kantor's story in the New York Times today. What does this mean? Well, for me it means lots of childhood afternoons spent reveling in the scrapes of a family that was even bigger than mine. Since I'm the oldest, it's no surprise that I fixated on Marcia and Greg. Remember his groovy pad? Ridiculous, yes, but also familiar, in the sense of wanting to grow up and away from a household filled with younger kids. I think it was this preview of adolescence that stuck with me, rather than the show's retro-gender roles for the parents. Of course, for Michelle O. the show's significance could be entirely different—there's its utter whiteness, for example, and those loopy trips to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon. But never mind—this is exactly the sort of tidbit about a candidate's family that gives me a sense of closeness. False, no doubt. But I get to imagine sitting down and talking favorite episodes with her.
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By the time The New Yorker
landed in my mail slot today, I'd seen the cover so many times already
it was like, "You, finally!'' As if it had stopped off for a couple of
drinks on the way over here and lost all track of time. So, allow me to
be the last to tell Jack
why I totally hate this image of the Obamas: It would be funnier if
half the country didn't actually think of this hardworking,
high-achieving woman—remind me again what Michelle Obama has not done right?—as
Angela Davis in a sheath. I don't know whether to cry or spit for every
morning she got up before it was light outside to make sure she
got every single thing on the do-list done, only to be looked at like
this. But I am not tempted to laugh.
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Political consultants are always yammering about what a good idea it is to get the most damaging information out in the open ASAP, and on the candidate's own terms. Which is why I suspect Michelle Obama of cannily revealing that secret terrorist handshake in literally the very first moment it was safe to do so, on the very night her hubby acknowledged that he had closed the deal. The true genius, of course, was in the foresight and field work of spending the last 15 years getting millions of hapless suburban tweens and their hopelessly unhip parents thinking that this menacing shout out to fellow jihadists was harmless as a high-five; is there no end to this woman's perfidy? And that "baby mama" thing? Doubtless a plant, designed to deflect attention from the soon-to-be-released video of Michelle complaining about her husband's general messiness, and shouting, "Why'd he leave out the butter? Why'd he leave out the socks?'' Not to mention—oops, just did!—the shocking follow-up footage in which she asks a neighbor, "D'you see that?'' Let's just say I'll be curious to see what job that Fox "producer'' gets in the Obama administration.