Byron York reports on an campaign stop last week with Michelle Obama at the Zanesville Day Nursery. At this informal gathering, Mrs. Obama chats with some moms and demonstrates her capacity to struggle with the issues that face an economically troubled central Ohio--particularly the tough choices that face hard working women with children. She empathizes with them . . . because, you know, she’s a lot like them. She knows the struggles of a working mother. She mentions feeling guilt. But here she makes no distinction between needing to work and choosing to work. The median annual household income in Zanesville, Ohio is around $37,000. I suspect that Michelle and Barack did better than that--even before they had what she calls the "magic beans" of Barack’s two best-selling books. (York notes the profits they made in the "help" industry, for example). I find Michelle Obama’s guilt over working and being absent from her children somewhat hard to stomach in the face of all that information. Acknowledging the difference between needing a second income and choosing one, I wonder if the guilt she’s feeling isn’t something she might easily address by making different choices. And I also wonder whether the women at the Zanesville Day Nursery wouldn’t be able to make different choices were it not for the confiscatory tax and regulatory structures that have helped to hurt the economy in Zanesville. But apparently the women at the Zanesville Day Nursery were too polite to ask these questions. It’s not every day that a potential First Lady comes for coffee, after all.
But if her fake compassion for these women and the guilt they feel made me want to gag, her follow up comments made me want to gag her. Expressing her understanding of the expense involved in raising children, Mrs. Obama noted that she and Barack spend around $10,000 a year just on extra-curricular activities and lessons for their two girls. $10,000? (!) Did I mention she was talking to women in a town where the median yearly-income is around $37,000? Oh, that’s right. I did mention that. So she and Mr. Obama spend a little more than a quarter of the yearly income of most of these women (before taxes) on extra-curricular activities. Oh, yes. She can relate. Like most wives, she even argues with her husband about these expenses . . . "Do you know what summer camp costs?" Summer camp? Do you mean like for 4-H? My guess is probably not.
For a year or so in college, I would sit in a common area with other students waiting for class. I didn't know the students before hand, we, somehow, gravitated together and eventually became familiar.
One student I sat with frequently talk about his family's connections with the university's president, their vacations in exotic places, and how he had a brand new Corvette when he was 16, which he totalled. One time he lamented on the difficulting of figuring which tropical vacation he should take in the near future. I interjected, with sarcasm, that it would be nice to have such troubles. He retorted that life is relative and his trouble is on par with mine or others who are below his economic level.
I believe that this kind of attitude is being displayed with Michelle Obama. She is attempting to use her 'troubles' to make her seem somewhat in touch with those below her on the economic scale. The problem with her and my somewhat snobbish waiting acquantance is that they both did not realize how pathetic and shallow they appear.
And, yeah, I did mix tenses, sorry.
Nice job, Dale. I couldn't have said it better myself. The Obamas, just like their class-warfare-stoking friend John Edwards, just don't get it.
This seems a bit harsh to me. What do you want from Mrs. Obama? OK, you want her to stay home with her small children (or else shut up about her "guilt"). Do you say her guilt is faked? Do you say rich people should not spend $10,000 on lesssons? Or should she lie about that? Should she not be talking with ordinary people in Zanesville? They seemed happy enough to meet her.
As an ideological liberal, her guilt is real, and her affection toward these women is heart felt (if also politically expedient). Conservatives would be better off figuring out how to influence the country than confessing the sins of such people. It will be president Obama, and I for one am glad, as I would rather have such liberalism than the dishonest "conservativism" of what the GOP has been peddling for a number of years now.
So would these women, they would rather have Mrs. O than bridges to nowhere "conservativism". Yes, a conservative would not peddle any "guilt" - oh wait, yes they would, they would pass Prescription Drug Giveaways so as to spend the meager $dollars$ that these women do send to Washington on rich old folks. Oh yes, let's continue to bash liberals for being liberals - that's productive...
Why the heck is it *only* $10K? And what prompted her to mention the amount? What are they giving to charity? Have their tax returns been released yet? Will it be another ignoble repeat of the disclosure that Al Gore gave something like $400 (and I overstate) to charity the year before he ran for president?
So, it is all relative.
One's trouble, which may be about paying rent or having enough money for a medical expense is on par with choosing the next tropical vacation or paying $10,000 on piano and dance lessons for the children?
Are you serious?
Her perceived diffuculty is real to her, but they are not even close to the people she is trying to connect with.
I want to know how much Hussein Obama gives to that Arab school where he learned to hate God and America.