“How could anyone disagree with such great people?”
“That Michelle is the nicest person ever.”
These are the reactions that the Obama media offensive was created to produce. It has worked like a charm. In survey after survey, the Obamas top the list for the family most Americans wish they had as neighbors. “They’re so warm, so likable—so like us!” Was I the only person laughing when in a May 2010 interview with Condé Nast Traveler Michelle Obama bemoaned losing some of her pre–White House freedom and privacy? “I want to get on the Metro,” she claimed.
Oh, right, and I bet she wished she didn’t have to take Marine One to Camp David on the weekends. She really wishes she could sit in traffic like the rest of us.
In a Good Morning America interview in May 2007, Michelle Obama shared her views on family values and once again proudly displayed that designer chip on her shoulder. She told Robin Roberts, “We have spent the last decade talking a good game about family values. But I haven’t seen much evidence that we actually value women or families. . . . I think that we as a country have been a little lax in our concern for these issues. We’ve been nullified by the fear mongers. It’s almost as if people have voted against their best personal interest because they’ve been so afraid of what could happen. You know: ‘The terrorists are going to get us.’ . . . [a] non fear-based, non-ideological approach is what we need now as a country.” Translation: What we need is a country where Michelle Obama dictates the fear—“We can’t afford to do nothing on health care,” or “Obesity is a national security issue”—where her ideology rules.
Michelle Obama’s version of family values is to play the devoted housewife while keeping both hands firmly attached to the political levers of power. Her office ruthlessly manages the press coverage of the First Family, doling out exclusive photos, storylines, and personal tidbits to keep her media lackeys coming back for more. The East Wing has become expert at controlling the press. The First Lady’s communications director, Camille Johnston, and her press secretary, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, are the media gatekeepers.
They have been so successful, we now know more about the Obamas than people we have known for decades—even our own flesh and blood.
The First Lady shared this endearing story about her relationship with her daughters with Glamour magazine (September 3, 2007): “You know, my hope in my gut is that I am just Mommy . . . I mean, so much of our relationship is based on our world at home. It’s getting up—you know, we have this ritual in the morning. We get up and they want ten more minutes so they can come in my bed, and if their dad isn’t there—because he is too snore-y and stinky, they don’t want ever to get in the bed with him—but we cuddle up and we talk. We’ve talked about everything from the boy that one daughter doesn’t like in school to what is a period. . . .”
Can you imagine Dolly Madison telling a reporter that her husband snored and passed gas in bed? Or Nancy Reagan revealing to a magazine that she and Patti Davis had a heart-to-heart about menstruation?
Michelle and her image makers in the East Wing serve up personal tripe that newspapers, magazines, blogs, and broadcasters are only too happy to spread to the world. This type of reportage requires little thought and zero journalistic skill. To them, it’s a scoop. To me, it’s TMI: Too Much Information. What relevance do these domestic trivialities have on our daily lives or on the president’s ability to govern? Still, each is treated by the press corps as if SALT III were just signed.
Here is just a smattering of the White House TMI overload:
• Hair stylist Johnny Wright relocated from Chicago to Washington to keep the First Lady perfectly coiffed at all times. Her personal trainer followed her to D.C. as well.
• The First Lady loves short-shorts. (I am biting my tongue and straining to suppress any and all commentary.)
• Always the supportive wife, Michelle revealed that her husband did not know how to make a bed. He also does not put the butter away after breakfast.
• The president leaves wet towels on the bathroom floor. Can you guess the source of these tidbits? The same First Lady who said, “He’s a gifted man, but in the end, he’s just a man.”
You will notice that the majority of this family minutiae paints the president in a negative light. In addition to trashing America, Michelle can always be relied on to publicly nitpick her husband. When asked about this in the Glamour interview, she responded defensively: “Barack is very much human. So let’s not deify him, because what we do is we deify, and then we’re ready to chop it down. People have notions of what a wife’s role should be in this process, and it’s been a traditional one of blind adoration. My model is a little different . . .” No kidding.
The release of these intimate details is designed to humanize the Obamas, to take the edge off their radical designs and give them an appearance of ordinariness. This keeps their personal popularity numbers high and has obvious political benefits.
The Obamas are part of a cultural overthrow of discretion and all sense of modesty. Through their nonstop personal disclosures (the president does not replace toilet paper rolls and has the audacity to leave the seat up!), the Obamas, their surrogates, and pop culture are teaching our children to let it all hang out, leave nothing to the imagination. This compulsive need to reveal once-private details now permeates American society.
From the desperate actions of the balloon boy’s family to the gate-crashing antics of the Salahis, people are willing to do anything to attract public attention. In this permissive atmosphere, people like musician John Mayer feel entitled to call a former girlfriend “sexual napalm” in public and to expound on the racial preferences of his sexual organ. This habit of untoward self-revelation is now an epidemic and the Obamas are feeding into it.
Obama wannabe Harold Ford, Jr., during his short New York senate run, felt obliged to justify his frequent pedicures (don’t ask) to the New York Times: “I have severe athlete’s foot—feet. I get a foot scrub out of respect for my wife because getting into bed with what I have when I take my socks off isn’t respectful to anybody.” Though in the age of four-hour-erection ads, I suppose Ford seems almost modest.
The Obamas’ love of fame and demand for public adoration apparently knows no bounds, extending to all members of the family. Despite their public decision to shield their daughters from publicity and keep their lives as normal as possible, Barack and Michelle Obama seem to have no problem invoking their girls when it suits them politically.
From their first major appearance at the Democratic National Convention in 2008, to their big interview with Access Hollywood on July 4 of that same year, the Obama girls have been trotted out for maximum effect. During their “first interview as a family,” Malia and Michelle ragged on the then-senator for sporting “ten-year-old” clothes and leaving his “bag in the middle of the floor.” Though Barack barely got a word in edgewise, he did get plenty of abuse from the ladies in the family. No wonder the whole clan has not sat for an interview since. But that doesn’t mean that Malia and Sasha have been absent from the scene.
In February 2010, mother Michelle used Malia and Sasha to justify her “anti-obesity initiative or movement.” In repeated interviews, she claimed a pediatrician (never identified), alarmed by her daughters’ Body Mass Index readings, recommended lifestyle changes to head off an obesity problem. This, Michelle told the world, inspired her national anti-obesity crusade. It is hard to read this as anything other than political opportunism.
Since no one elected Michelle Obama to do anything, she had to insulate herself from potential criticism—so the First Lady ran to the well of personal narrative. Just when her Eva Peron slip began to show, she threw the children out front to mask her meddling in policy. After all, she’s just an average mom worried about “the children,” right?
It is curious that when the Beanie Baby company, Ty, unveiled its “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia” dolls, Michelle Obama thought them “inappropriate” and was so �
�irked” by their presence, the dolls were eventually withdrawn from the marketplace. But at least Ty created flattering depictions of the Obama daughters and didn’t raise public questions about the girls’ sizes or body images, which is more than you can say for their mother.
President Obama has also used his daughters as political cover and to advance policy. The most egregious example came during a pivotal May 27, 2010, presidential press conference during the Gulf Coast oil spill. Responding to criticism that he had not been fully engaged during the crisis, he noted that every morning his daughter Malia asks, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” This was a pathetic and ineffective ploy to engender empathy, to humanize him.
And who can forget the president’s open letter to Malia and Sasha in Parade magazine during inaugural week (What happened to writing private letters to your children?): “. . . I realized that my own life wouldn’t count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for president: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation . . .”
He went on to cite a laundry list of policy desires. But apparently that concern for “every child in the nation” only includes those fortunate enough to survive the womb.
“PUNISHED WITH A BABY”
On January 23, 2009, in one of his very first acts as president, Obama overturned the Mexico City Policy, forcing taxpayers to fund groups that promote or perform abortions abroad. This one executive order funneled tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the abortion industry. When he announced the policy change, the president added: “In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world.”
This “common ground” line has been a default for President Obama every time the issue of abortion arises. The problem is, the only common ground for children involved in abortion is the soil covering their remains.
How can one expect President Obama to find any semblance of “common ground” when he has surrounded himself with some of the most militantly pro-abortion collaborators in presidential history? Just look at a few of his staff picks:
Ellen Moran, White House communications director, is the former director of Emily’s List, a group that bankrolls the candidacy of pro-abortion women who seek national office.
Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, is a former board member of Emily’s List.
David Ogden, Obama’s deputy attorney general, argued in a 1992 brief that women faced no psychological or emotional problems after having an abortion. In fact, he wrote, “The evidence shows that she is more likely to experience feelings of relief and happiness . . . child-birth and child-rearing or adoption may pose concomitant (if not greater) risks or adverse psychological effects.” Aside from believing that childbirth poses a greater danger to a woman than abortion, Ogden does have a soft spot for the blind. He sued in federal court to compel the Library of Congress to publish Braille editions of Playboy magazine. (Ogden returned to private practice in February 2010.)
Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, as well as the former governor of Kansas, is a longtime supporter of late-term abortions. She vetoed a measure that would have limited the grisly procedure, holding firm to her pro-abortion convictions while trying to pass herself off as a practicing Catholic. Owing to her public abortion stance, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City asked Sebelius to refrain from receiving communion.
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and former congressman, never met an abortion policy he couldn’t support. He earned himself an unsurprising zero percent voting score from National Right to Life.
I could go on and on. There is the pro-abortion vice president, Joe Biden; the pro-abortion secretary of state, Hillary Clinton; the pro-abortion solicitor general and Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan . . . Although he talks a good game about “seeking common ground,” the president hasn’t a single pro-life advisor. This perhaps explains, in part, why he is so clumsy in discussing the question of when life begins. Who can forget his telling Pastor Rick Warren that the issue was “above [his] pay grade”?
Forget the canned speeches and the confusing press releases on the issue of life. Where does the president stand on protecting and nurturing the smallest members of our families? For answers, listen to what he says when he is speaking off the cuff. At a Pennsylvania rally in March 2008, Senator Obama told the assembled: “I’ve got two daughters—nine years old and six years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
“Punished with a baby.”
When an individual considers their own grandchild a punishment, how can you possibly think them capable of creating just or moral policies regarding human life? Of all the deeply troubling remarks made by this president, there is none that I find more offensive or tragic than this one. It reveals President Obama’s true feelings about human life and gives us a unique perspective into his notions of family. It also puts in context the many destructive, anti-life policies that we have seen coming out of his administration.
Given that quote, it is painfully obvious why the president overthrew a thirteen-year ban and allowed the federal funding of abortions in the District of Columbia. It makes perfect sense that he would request and receive $648.5 million for international family planning efforts—the lion’s share of which will go to contraceptive and abortion services in foreign countries. And if nearly born children are not afforded basic protections, what chance do the embryos have? President Obama permitted federal tax dollars to fund morally offensive, scientifically specious, and destructive embryonic stem cell research. By executive order, he demanded that military hospitals stock the morning-after pill. He invalidated conscience protections for pro-life health workers and even tried to slip abortion coverage into his national health-care overhaul.
And this is “common ground”?
Michelle Obama, on the last day of the Democratic National Convention, in a speech to the Woman’s Caucus, said of her husband: “He’ll protect a woman’s freedom of choice, because government should have no say in whether or when a woman embraces the sacred responsibility of parenthood.” The verbal sleight of hand is fascinating. Human life is not sacred, but the responsibility of parenthood is.
THE DIARY OF FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
July 7, 2009
Smokey stepped in it big time today. We have been pounding the story of how he and I met into his head for two years now—and Barack still hasn’t learned it! Today, he gets up at a graduation here at the New Economic School and says, “Thank you so much. Well, congratulations . . . to the entire Class of 2009 . . . I don’t know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I’m sure that you’re all going to have wonderful careers . . .”
What class is he talking about? I sure as hell didn’t meet his scrawny ass in school. As if I was his student! Please! Valerie was kicking me so hard when he said that, my left leg is all bruised. I may have to wear stockings for the rest of this trip now—and I hate stockings.
When I heard him tell those Russians that we met in class, I thought, Oh Lord, this thing is unraveling faster than the stimulus bill.
On my orders, Gibbs spent the afternoon making sure the serious correspondents covered the relationship between Russia and America laid out in Smokey’s big speech. Desiree got the other idiots to write about Sasha and Malia’s matching secret-agent trench coats—we gave them pictures and everything.
Thank God half the graduates and all the reporters were sleeping during Barack’s blather. Gorbachev (who was also there) literally had drool running down the front of his shirt. These pundits keep talking about what a great orator Barack is. Truth is, I don’t see it.
I’m with Gorby; he puts me to sleep too. Reverend Jeremiah he is not! He’s a walking, talking AmbienCR. I should have given the graduation speech. I promise you, had I been talking, Gorby would have been wide-awake and taking notes!
LIGHTS, CAMERA, MARRIAGE
It is the stuff of Harlequin romances and Danielle Steel paperbacks. Except in this case, it is being written by accredited journalists.
Christine Simmons, NBC News, May 3, 2009: “The First Couple took full advantage of the cool spring night. After a date night out on Saturday evening, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama decided to take a stroll . . . So they began walking on the driveway of the White House South Lawn, holding hands. First they passed the West Wing, then their children’s swing set. They kept walking, swinging their hands together.”
Associated Press, May 3, 2009: “. . . the First Couple wanted a private stroll. Below an overcast sky Saturday, the Obamas clasped hands and made their way down the driveway of the White House South Lawn. They came back the same way, rounding out their eight-minute walk.”
Amazingly, they strolled right past a phalanx of waiting photographers and reporters!
Every calculated move of the First Couple has been analyzed, covered ad nauseam, and drummed into our heads like holy writ: They are the perfect couple . . . they are the perfect couple . . . TV correspondents swoon over the thrilling romance of the date nights: the glamour of the First Lady, the gallantry of the president, the way their hands brushed, the moonlit strolls. In between lecturing Americans to “sacrifice,” it’s nice to know the Obamas are having a good time.
During an official trip to Prague on April 4, 2009, the president snubbed his hosts and decided to spend his only night in the country at a romantic outing with the First Lady. Never mind that this came at the tail end of an international voyage where the First Couple had spent days enjoying dinners and concerts in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
The Obama Diaries Page 5
