Moochell

[mister_coffee]

I would presume to speak for other members of the community and say that racism and misogyny have no place here.

Engaging in debate with racists and misogynists merely validates their point of view.

[Rideback]

#1 Michelle Obama has repeatedly and decidedly stated that she will not be running in '24. That Rep strategists have chosen to speculate that she would is purely chatter designed to rattle Jingles cage. And apparently it has. So he has demonstrated just how easy he is to being manipulated.

#2 Her statement during the campaign was well explained at the time and her pride in her Country's efforts to be proactive in civil rights. She and her husband are black, they represented an achievement where their color was simultaneously recognized together with their abilities by the voters. There's a reason why Obama consistently is ranked in the top tier of presidents. He did good things for this Country. Michelle was a first lady by his side that was filled with grace, compassion and intellect.

And remembering John and Cindy McCain. They were proud of their Country for many reasons. Still, daily we've all heard Trump declare that he's not proud of his Country. His first lady wore a coat to the border declaring that she didn't care, even though she herself was an immigrant. When asked to serve his Country Trump opted out. He has made numerous and continuing comments about his disdain for soldiers, war heroes and POWs. That's not love of Country.

[pasayten]

statement he/she said on inauguration day

Jeez Vern... Are you also buying into the wingnut theory that Michelle may be a man? Good grief!

And two different summaries of the event in question... It was not on inauguration day as you stated either...

Michelle Obama Takes Heat for Saying She’s ‘Proud of My Country’ for the First Time
By Fox News
Published February 19, 2008 3:21pm EST

Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, is under fire for leaving the impression that she hasn’t been proud of her country until now, when Democrats are beginning to rally around her husband’s campaign.

Speaking in Milwaukee, Wis., on Monday, she said, “People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Greeted with rousing applause after making the comment in Milwaukee, Obama delivered an amended version of the speech later that day in Madison, Wis.

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country … not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change,” she said. “I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.”

Obama was born in 1964, meaning her adult life began in 1982. Critics quickly seized on the newfound national pride.

“I am proud of my country,” John McCain’s wife, Cindy, said at a campaign stop in Brookfield, Wis., Tuesday. “I don’t know if you heard those words earlier … but I am very proud of my country.”

During a follow up press conference, the Arizona senator was asked if they were responding to Michelle Obama and he deferred to his wife.

McCain responded: “I just wanted to make the statement that I have and always will be proud of my country.”

Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the candidate’s wife wasn’t trying to knock her country, only underscore the meaning behind her husband’s campaign.

“The point is that of course Michelle is proud of her country, which is why she and Barack talk constantly about how their story wouldn’t be possible in any other nation on Earth,” she said. “What she meant is that she’s really proud at this moment because for the first time in a long time, thousands of Americans who’ve never participated in politics before are coming out in record numbers to build a grassroots movement for change.”


But conservative outlets aren’t so ready to let her off the hook.

“Can it really be there has not been a moment during that time when she felt proud of her country?” reads an article in Commentary magazine. “Forget matters like the victory in the Cold War; how about only things that have made liberals proud — all the accomplishments of inclusion? How about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991? Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s elevation to the Supreme Court?”

The article then says Michelle Obama’s comments suggest “the pseudo-messianic nature of the Obama candidacy is very much a part of the way the Obamas themselves are feeling.”

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol said the comment “was sort of revealing.”

“She was an adult when we won the Cold War without firing a shot. She was an adult for the last 25 years of economic progress, social progress,” he told FOX News. “I think the Democrats have to be careful … they’re running against the status quo … You have to be careful not to let that slide into a kind of indictment of America. Because I don’t think the American people think on the whole that the last 25 years of American history is a narrative of despair and nothing to be proud of.”

Democratic strategist Bob Beckel said Obama “shouldn’t have said it the way she said it” but she gets the benefit of his doubt. He added that she most likely was just referring to the grassroots movement that’s swelled to support her husband, but she needs to be more careful.

“The Obama’s have to recognize they are now front-runners, and everything they say, it’s now open hunting season for people,” he said.

Michelle Obama's 'Proud' Remarks
Published Mar 12, 2008 at 8:00 PM EDT
Newsweek By Evan Thomas

Before the Wisconsin primary in mid-February, Michelle Obama made a remark that Republicans will use to hammer her husband should he win the Democratic nomination. "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback," she said. Almost immediately, Cindy McCain told reporters, "I have and always will be proud of my country." Both Michelle and her husband tried to explain that what she really meant was that was proud to see so many people turn out to vote. But a lot of voters did and will wonder: how could someone who graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School and won a job at a high-paying Chicago law firm—who was in some way a beneficiary of affirmative action—sound so alienated from her country?

The remark may have been just a slip under the relentless pressure of campaigning. But it may also reveal an edge of bitterness that Michelle Obama felt as a Princeton senior, when she was just entering her adult life. In the winter of that year, 1985, she wrote her thesis on the subject of "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." The thesis is dense with sociological jargon about "dependent variables" and the like, but it also includes some strong personal sentiments. Though she came from a black working-class neighborhood in Chicago, she writes that "my experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be towards me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second." She further suggests that even if she assimilates into white society after Princeton, she will "remain on the periphery of society: never becoming a full participant."

Princeton in the early 1980s had been accepting blacks in significant numbers for less than two decades of its more than two-century history (none before World War II). Black students tended to self-segregate, as they did and still do on many campuses. Although, as she notes in the thesis, the university strongly encourages integration, there is still a fair amount of self-segregation at Princeton (where I teach a journalism course). Black students in Michelle's time embraced a "consciousness" attributable to "the injustices and oppressions suffered by this race of people which are not comparable to the experiences of any other race of people through this country's history," she writes.

For her thesis, Michelle surveyed 400 black Princeton alumni (about a fourth of whom responded). She writes that she was surprised—and clearly disappointed—to find that as these alums entered the wider world, in which they overwhelmingly reported great upward social mobility, they ceased to identify primarily with the black community.

Of course, the same happened to her when she entered the real world. Indeed, she somewhat reluctantly anticipates her fate in her thesis. She says that her sense of alienation while at Princeton sharpened her goal to "utilize my resources to benefit the Black community. At the same time, however, it is conceivable that my four years of exposure has instilled within me certain conservative values. For example, as I enter my final year in Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates—acceptance to a prestigious graduate or professional school or a high paying position in a successful corporation. Thus, my goals after Princeton are not as clear as before."

Michelle Obama is by now so well assimilated that she can wear a dress and pearls that are photocopies of the clothes and jewels worn by Jackie Kennedy—and pull it off with grace and panache. At the same time, no one should doubt her blackness (or her husband's, as she has made clear more than once). She has found a way to thrive in any world that she wants. But it is perhaps unsurprising that, for an unguarded moment on the campaign trail, she reflected the alienation she felt at being a lonely working-class black woman at a rich white man's school long ago.

[just-jim]

,
I always suspected you were a closet racist.

Suspicion confirmed. Yes, you are disgusting.
.

[Jingles]

Yea,might be disgusting but facts are fact that she said that at the inauguration and anyone 5hat even considers her a possible candidate should consider if they should even be called an American AND it has absolutely NOTHING to do with race. Personally I don't care if the person is male , female or undecided, White, Black, Brown. Yellow or purple with yellow pokadots you make a statement like that pack your bags and get the hell out of a country you don't respect

[pasayten]

Jingles probably believes the birther conspiracy also...

[mister_coffee]

Somebody really needs to stop reading crazy conspiracy theory websites and go outside and relax.

And here I was thinking today that at least our token right-wing kooks on this board aren't explicitly racist. I guess I thought that too soon...

[PAL]

You are disgusting.

[Jingles]

Heard today that big money Dems are talking to the obummers about Micheal running in 2024.
Sincerely hope everyone remember the statement he/she said on inauguration day when it said it was the first time it was proud to be an American and decide we don't need someone that says that to be in the WH unless WH stands for Whore House