Michelle Obama (Barack's wife) in Milwaukee, either yesterday or the day before:
"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."
"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."
Now, I have to bring this up. Mrs. Obama is 44 years old, so her "adult lifetime" began in 1982. Between 1982 and today, is she saying that NOTHING has transpired in this country that has made her proud? Are we really that crappy a country?
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Or, is Mrs. Obama simply displaying that typical Liberal proclivity toward bashing America?
Forty years ago in the American South, riot police were releasing dogs and turning water hoses on people of color. Before that, people of color were often treated much worse than that, by an openly racist and xenophobic society. Today, people of color stand next to anyone, and can receive expensive ivy-league educations on their way to very lucrative careers (as big-time Chicago lawyers, for example). People of color are today running for President of the United States, with a real chance of winning. And evidently, those same people see nothing to be proud of their country about.
I bring up the civil rights movement because I'm proud of how far we've come in that area. There's still a ways to go, we all recognize that. But our progress thus far is something to be proud of this country for (I think, anyway).
Since 1982, the United States has liberated Grenada from Communist Cuban invaders, freed Panama from its drug-smuggling presidente Noriega, liberated Kuwait from ruthless Iraqi hordes, opposed lawless warlords in Somalia, and ousted murderous, Nazi-like totalitarian regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've championed peace between Israel and her neighbors, campaigned for human rights in places like China and North Korea, and Stood side-by-side with South Africans opposing Apartheid.
First Lady Nancy Reagan pays her respects to American casualties of the Grenada invasion, Oct. 1983
Nelson Mandela, imprisoned by the Apartheid regime in South Africa, 1990How many Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winners have come from the United States since 1982? And how many other countries can compete with that? How many Olympic athletes? World-class musicians? Artists?
Which country pioneered the artificial heart? Come to think of it, Mrs. Obama, being a lawyer for the medical industry, ought to know more about American medical advancements than I would. Still, though, nothing to be proud about there, right?
How many other countries could send the Space Shuttle into space more than a hundred times? That whole deal was pretty new, back when she was a young adult, wasn't it? Not proud of that? Well, let's see what else I can come up with.
How many minority and low-income students have attended American universities in the past 26 years, who would have simply gone hungry had they been born in other countries?
When this country came together after 9/11 in a way reminiscent of the homefronts of the Second World War, I guess Mrs. Obama felt nothing? Was there nothing at all to be proud of, when the Congress of the United States - both houses, both parties - stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang in defiance of tyranny and terror?
How many other countries experience routine, peaceable regime changes every four years, as a function of their constitutions? How many other countries guarantee their citizens the right to speak their minds, to write whatever they want, to worship however they feel is right (or not to, if that’s their choice), the right to refuse quarter to the military, the right to a trial by jury of their peers, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to keep and bear arms, just in case it all goes bad? And then, having guaranteed all that (and much more, of course) in the Constitution, how many other countries would continue to take it seriously, hundreds of years after all that was written?
Is none of this reason to be proud of this country?
Is it possible that someone, given all this, can feel zero pride in the United States, unless people vote for them (or their husbands)? Is it right for ones sense of national pride to be linked only to whether or not people support ones political ambitions?
And here’s the real question: Do we really want a first lady who honestly believes that the only good thing about this country is that her husband is running it? Haven't we seen that before?
How many other countries experience routine, peaceable regime changes every four years, as a function of their constitutions? How many other countries guarantee their citizens the right to speak their minds, to write whatever they want, to worship however they feel is right (or not to, if that’s their choice), the right to refuse quarter to the military, the right to a trial by jury of their peers, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to keep and bear arms, just in case it all goes bad? And then, having guaranteed all that (and much more, of course) in the Constitution, how many other countries would continue to take it seriously, hundreds of years after all that was written?
Is none of this reason to be proud of this country?
Is it possible that someone, given all this, can feel zero pride in the United States, unless people vote for them (or their husbands)? Is it right for ones sense of national pride to be linked only to whether or not people support ones political ambitions?
And here’s the real question: Do we really want a first lady who honestly believes that the only good thing about this country is that her husband is running it? Haven't we seen that before?
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I realize there are things we need desperately to fix. I get that. But even with all of this country's flaws, I have to wonder: Is that warm, fuzzy feeling Michelle Obama gets when people support her husband's campaign really the only worthwhile thing about America?
3 comments:
We all make very broad statements sometimes and don't necessarily mean it the way it comes out. I will give you that she, as the wife of a election-viable candidate, should always be careful about what she says and how she says it, but most everyone has stated something similar at one time or another, without taking the time to really think it through. While there is really no excuse for such a statement form the wife of a candidate, I can understand the lapse. She undoubtedly knows she misstated to make her point.
I wonder if, in Munich in 1932, anyone said, "I know he's talking about eradicating the Jews, but I think he's overstating his case for effect."
This woman stands to wield serious influence over the most powerful man in the world. We need to take her every word at face value.
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