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The first lady's disappointing story revision
The Daily Oklahoman ^ | 12-30-14 | EDITORIAL

Posted on 12/30/2014 12:25:40 PM PST by Osage Orange

The first lady's disappointing story revision by The Oklahoman Editorial Board Published: December 30, 2014

MICHELLE Obama’s tale of a shopping trip she made in September 2011 is still generating some head scratching.

In 2012 on national television, she was laughing about going almost unnoticed during the trip to Target. Months later, with some time to think about it, the first lady has told People magazine that she was perhaps the target of some mild bigotry.

Her first version of the story, told to late-night host David Letterman, was probably the most accurate. To recap, most believe she made the trip to show the world that the Obamas were just average folks. After all, there was an election around the corner in 2012. She didn’t enter the Target with all the trappings of first lady. Photographs of the trip show her dressed incognito.

Most likely, Obama was still worried about being recognized and the embarrassment of dealing with the attention. Yet just one woman approached her. That woman asked Obama to help her reach a brand of detergent from an upper shelf. Here’s account No. 1, told to Letterman in 2012:

“I reached up, ’cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down — she said, ‘Well, you didn’t have to make it look so easy.’ That was my interaction. I felt so good. … She had no idea who I was. I thought, as soon as she walked up — I was with my assistant, and I said, ‘This is it, it’s over. We’re going to have to leave.’ She just needed the detergent.”

And here is the second version, as reported in People two weeks ago:

“I tell this story — I mean, even as the first lady during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised — the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. These incidents in the black community, this is the regular course of life.”

The magazine also quoted her husband as saying, “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.” Yes, said the president, it had happened to him.

As usual, President and Mrs. Obama have it wrong. It’s common for many people, regardless of race, to be mistaken for an employee instead of a customer. And so what if they are? In Mrs. Obama’s case, she went into the Target hoping not to be recognized. The customer she helped had her attention on the shelves and shopping. She wasn’t there in search of a celebrity sighting.

The Obamas’ comments smack of trying a little too hard to become part of racial bias narrative that’s been flaring since the Ferguson, Mo., killing of a black youth by a white police officer. They too, you see, have experienced racism — albeit in the mildest form.

Back in 2011, Michelle Obama did a good deed for someone. Bless her. She should have left it at that. But the supreme self-regard the Obamas have wouldn’t permit her to do so.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: michelle; obama
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1 posted on 12/30/2014 12:25:40 PM PST by Osage Orange
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To: Osage Orange

No good deed goes unpunished.


2 posted on 12/30/2014 12:30:13 PM PST by albie
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To: Osage Orange
The phoney story illustrates an unrefuted fact of life in 2014. Most black people in America have never directly experienced racial discrimination any more overt than possibly a frown or a muttered word. Obviously neither Obama has.
3 posted on 12/30/2014 12:32:52 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Osage Orange

Instead of impugning a whole race, which is wrong, let’s resort to paraphrasing the old Salem cigarette commercial from now on!

You can take Michelle Obama out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of Michelle Obama!


4 posted on 12/30/2014 12:33:48 PM PST by jimmyo57
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To: Osage Orange

Michelle, is that you?

5 posted on 12/30/2014 12:34:12 PM PST by Slyfox (To put on the mind of George Washington read ALL of Deuteronomy 28, then read his Farewell Address)
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To: Slyfox

Seriously, tell me that isn’t real! If it is, I will be sick.


6 posted on 12/30/2014 12:35:54 PM PST by Toespi
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To: Osage Orange
How dare a short, white peasant ask the queen to pass something to her.

What a horribly racist thing to do.

Off with her head!


7 posted on 12/30/2014 12:35:57 PM PST by Bon mots (American Exceptionalism becomes American Acceptionalism under this regime... :()
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To: Osage Orange
“There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.”

Well then. By now you should have a garage full of cool cars, eh?

8 posted on 12/30/2014 12:38:26 PM PST by shibumi ("Walk through the fire - Fly through the smoke")
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To: Toespi
people of walmart
9 posted on 12/30/2014 12:38:33 PM PST by Slyfox (To put on the mind of George Washington read ALL of Deuteronomy 28, then read his Farewell Address)
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To: Osage Orange

Imagine if that had been Laura Bush lamenting that a peasant didn’t recognize her and asked her to reach something on a shelf. This woman is every bit as narcissistic as her husband. And perhaps she never heard of Google to help her keep her stories straight. And what incompetent staff the Obamas must have to allow them to continually put their feet in their mouths.


10 posted on 12/30/2014 12:39:16 PM PST by Mjaye (Obama's chickens have come home to roost.)
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To: shibumi

She probably doesn’t even realize that the vast majority of us don’t eat at restaurants that have valet parking.


11 posted on 12/30/2014 12:43:20 PM PST by tacticalogic
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To: Osage Orange
The story most likely is fiction, as is just about everything involving the Obamas. They lie, they fabricate, anything to advance their agenda. It's compulsive. They just can't help themselves.
12 posted on 12/30/2014 12:50:51 PM PST by fatnotlazy
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To: Osage Orange

What is most amazing is that this is the only example of Racism against her she can remember.


13 posted on 12/30/2014 12:53:18 PM PST by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
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To: Osage Orange

Little old ladies ask me to help them get things off the top shelf ALL THE TIME! I am mostly white. I enjoy helping them, common human courtesy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


14 posted on 12/30/2014 1:01:00 PM PST by buffyt (Gov.Cuomo: "conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay, have no place in NY")
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To: Slyfox

Now that is gross!


15 posted on 12/30/2014 1:07:31 PM PST by Osage Orange (I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it.)
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To: Osage Orange

I have both been asked by strangers for help and have asked strangers for help. Never really occurred to me to tell folks about it. But then it must be because I’m a white guy.


16 posted on 12/30/2014 1:11:56 PM PST by all the best
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To: shibumi

Really?? I’ve always waited in my car until they opened the door for me....The keys were in the ignition.


17 posted on 12/30/2014 1:16:47 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: buffyt

Ha!!.....Zero is half white...and half Kenyan.


18 posted on 12/30/2014 1:22:43 PM PST by Osage Orange (I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it.)
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To: buffyt

You’re “mostly white”?


19 posted on 12/30/2014 1:23:08 PM PST by Just A Reader
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To: all the best
You need to be less color blind!!

/s

20 posted on 12/30/2014 1:47:40 PM PST by Osage Orange (I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it.)
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