Posted on 06/30/2008 6:17:27 AM PDT by Kaslin
Now that Barack Obama has pretty much wrapped up the nomination, it's time to raise a question that lots of people have been talking about privately but not publicly. Is it possible that Michelle Obama is the force behind Barack Obama's refusal to embrace traditional patriotic symbols? Could Obama's wife be largely responsible for the candidate's damaging associations with crackpot race-baiters like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Reverend Michael Pfleger? In sum, could Obama's wife be a large part of his political problem?
Obama himself seems, at least on the surface, relatively free of the kind of corrosive racial resentment that is so common among African American activists of our day. This resentment is especially puzzling as it often comes from people who, far from being victims, have actually enjoyed benefits and privileges that they would probably never get if they happened to be white.
Consider the case of Michelle Obama. She was raised in a two-parent, middle-class family. She applied to one of America's top universities, Princeton, and was admitted. Of this experience, Michelle says on the stump, "All my life I have confronted people who had a certain expectation of me. Every step of the way, there has been people telling me what I couldn't do. When I applied to Princeton, they said: you can't go there, your test scores aren't high enough."
Which is all very moving, except that her test scores weren't high enough. Michelle Obama is part of the affirmative action generation of above-average but far-from-stellar performers who were granted preferential admission to America's most elite institutions.
Michelle notes that she graduated with honors in her major. Again, the problem is that her undergraduate thesis is on the web. You might expect that she wrote about Shakespeare's sonnets or the political evolution of W.E.B. Du Bois. Well, no. Essentially Michelle Obama wrote about the problems of being a black woman at an Ivy League university.
Here is a typical passage: "By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight."
Alas, the grammar is all wrong here. More than once, the tenses are garbled. People are ignorant "of" the plight of the lower class, not ignorant "to" their plight. And"desparation" should be spelled "desperation." To wreak so much havoc on the English language in one sentence, without conveying anything of substance, is perhaps deserving of a prize. Is this what her professors were thinking when they granted her honors? Whatever the Obamorons say, let's remember that that these are not mere typos; they reflect an estranged relationship to the English language. Moreover they appear not in an off-the-cuff transcript but in a thesis that is supposed to reflect the culmination of one's college career.
Subsequently Michelle went on to further appointments and even managed to cash in big time on her skin color and marriage to Barack Obama. She was hired by the University of Chicago hospitals to run "programs for community relations, neighborhood outrecah, volunteer recruitment, staff diversity, and minority contracting." Here her salary was $400,000 a year.
One might expect that the reaction of someone who gets so many privileges to be grateful to a society that makes them possible. But no. Michelle Obama thinks that her very success is an example of white oppression. By a bizarre twist of logic, she converts "you're not good enough, but we'll take you anyway" into a message of "they said I wasn't good enough, but I proved them wrong."
Ordinarily these psychological peculiarities may be of little interest, except perhaps to a therapist. But Michelle now stands next to a man that may be elected president of the United States. Barack Obama wants everyone to "lay off" his wife. He doesn't seem to realize that this is not a reasonable request concerning a woman who clearly influences him and who stands to have public influence in her own right. Moreover, for months the media has been laying off her precisely because she is his wife. Like Michelle, Obama seems to confuse preferential treatment with ill treatment.
Of course we've had controversial first ladies in the White House before. The Obamas, however, aren't there yet. Will Barack Obama be ultimately forced to distance himself not just from the Reverend Wright and the Reverend Pfleger but also from his own wife?
there is a difference between a typo and misspelling. Lucky you for having never made a typo. /sarcasm
Laura Bush
Michelle notes that she graduated with honors in her major. Again, the problem is that her undergraduate thesis is on the web. You might expect that she wrote about Shakespeare's sonnets or the political evolution of W.E.B. Du Bois. Well, no. Essentially Michelle Obama wrote about the problems of being a black woman at an Ivy League university.College kids do the silliest things so I'm wiling to cut her some slack on her thesis subject.
At our youngest daughter's recent college commencement (BsEd) one 'kid' who was getting his Masters Degree (or maybe Doctor's? can't recall now) wrote his Thesis (Dissertation?) on....So again, I'll cut Michelle some slack. Kids do the darnedest things.
"Why Alumni Don't Donate To Their University"Now I almost burst out laughing when this was announced and couldn't stop giggling as I got the joke he just pulled. As I saw it, he was stating that students think their college education is worthless and giving money to a lost cause is fruitless and a waste.And that it came from this 'kid' wasn't a shock to me either. When everyone came into the Hall he stood out, he was wearing Black Gym Shoes w/ white laces and Jeans. I though 'he doesn't have much respect for the occasion dressed like that'. His thesis showed that in spades.
Even Dinesh seems to assume Barry Hussein is going to get elected. Its going to be a very cold and discomfortig 4 years coming up, IMO.
Assumption is not being certain
People were quite schocked to see and hear the hate-mongering, race-baiting vitriol coming out of the mouths of so-called, “ministers of the gospel” linked to Obama and his “church”.
Those same people would no doubt consider it to be a form of “child abuse” when they remember that the Obamas subjected their children to that sort of “hate-speech brain-washing” week after week almost from the day of their birth.
How is that any different than what the Jihadists do when they __train___ little children to be haters?
I’m still hoping that the video of her with Louis Farrakhan calling white folks “whitey” will still surface. What a great “October Surprise” that would be.
Bump
I am surprised to see Dinesh write this. Obviously he hasn't read Bambi's autobiography, in which racial resentment is an ever-present subtext.
My thoughts exactly. I've read excerpts from his 2 "autobiographies" and he has a rather large racial chip on his shoulder, he just hides it better than the missus.
BTW what does it say about someone who is so full of himself that he would pen not one but two autobiographies at a rather young age. Most folks wait until the have accomplished something of note, not been the recipient of a failed policy of discrimination.
BLOOD CLOT!!!
I stand corrected, I thought she died quite some time ago. Thanks for the clarification, now he has NO excuse/explanation in my mind.
The first time I saw that video, it left me laughing so hard, I was in tears!!!!! I have West Indian friends and blood cot is a bad word, equally bad: pantyman and bumbaclat. I would like to see her barge into the Senate meetings of the defeatocrats/traitocrats, and just rail on them, big time./Just Asking - seoul62........
“Personally, my sense has been that hes pretty whipped.”
You’ve got it. Also, if Obama is the “candidate of hope”, his wife is clearly the the Bride of Hopelessness. I haven’t heard one speech/interview in which she had a positive attitude.
You’d think Obama could cheer his own wife up LOL.
Yes, my friends remember the crazy cabbie driving wildly and smoking a big jumbo at the same time!!!!!! Yes, and the phrases: big up and no problem mon./Just Asking - seoul62.........
It is a terrific psychological study describing how some American blacks are 'bargainers' and some are 'confronters.'
The Obama household has one of each.
Nope, don't see it...
Yikes! Where was her thesis supervisor? Why wasn't this graded and corrected before made final? It doesn't just speak about poor Michelle, it speaks "of" Princeton's lack of rigor.
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