Michelle Malkin, the rabid conservative blogger desperately in need of Ritalin, called her "Obama's bitter half." On a recent National Review cover, a photo of a fierce-looking Michelle Obama had "Mrs. Grievance" scrawled across. The magazine's online edition titled an essay about her stump speech "America's Unhappiest Millionaire."E.D. Hill, the Fox anchor currently in hiding for elevating stupidity to a new level, said that the celebrated fist pump between Michelle and her husband the night he snagged the nomination could be called a “terrorist fist jab.”
Damn, in this bar-knuckle race to the White House, a sistah can't even give her man some dap?
It’s good news for Obama that Hillary Rodham Clinton is FINALLY out of the race. But it’s also bad news. According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Republicans can now turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of “Kill the witch.”
How can this south-side Chicago chick, despite graduating from Princeton and Harvard Law School, possibly share American values? She's the female version of Jeremiah Wright, an angry black woman, the disgruntled Angela Davis with her afro blazing, denouncing “whitey.”
Even the relatively liberal online magazine Slate piled on. In a piece subtitled "Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?" the contrarian Christopher Hitchens blamed her for her husband's pastor troubles since she was a member of the church first.
The would-be first lady does not make pronouncements about policy and has insisted that her priority in the White House would be her two young daughters. But Obama has an earthy sense of humor that sometimes gets her in trouble.
It was an unscripted remark as she spoke in February about the enthusiastic response to his message of hope that set off conservatives: "And let me tell you something," she told a Wisconsin crowd. "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country."
The Obama campaign clarified her remarks right away but conservatives pressed the attack. John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, wrote that she had inadvertently revealed "the pseudo-messianic nature of the Obama candidacy."
The issue has shown no signs of going away. Even as Barack's national polls numbers reflect women are supporting his campaign 51% to McCain's 38%, an 8-point rise since Hillary Clinton suspended her historic campaign. Given that African American women really define the Black vote, this strategy is fatally flawed and will draw more votes away from the Republican Party.
In what could be seen as a test run for future attacks, the Tennessee Republican Party last month posted a Web video crosscutting her gaffe with declarations from average folks about how they've always been proud of their country.
A few days later, the candidate took umbrage. "These folks should lay off my wife," said Sen. Barack Obama, as she sat beside him on ABC's "Good Morning America." On June 18, she returns to ABC, this time as a guest host on the gabfest "The View."
But it she fair game? Most agree that the 44-year-old wife and mother of two infectious girls will not be immuned. Michelle Obama's antagonists ignore her when she says: "We have overcome so much in this country: racism, sexism, civil wars."
Instead, they focus on: "Life for regular folks has gotten worse over the course of my lifetime." Or: "Our souls are broken. . . . The problem is us." Or: "We're too cynical. And we are still a nation that is too mean -- just downright mean to one another. We don't talk to each other in civil tones."
"This is a huge debate among Republicans," said Malkin, who noted that until Obama's "proud" remark, "she was the new, glamorous Jackie O, and most stories focused on her pearls and wardrobe." But, Malkin added, "from what I've seen, despite her husband's admonition to lay off of her, she's not stopping what she's doing, and I don't think the rest of us should ignore her and treat her with kid gloves."
As Dowd correctly noted, when she’s on her game, after all, Michelle is a knockout. And as one Obama booster enthuses: “Michelle’s story is a lot more mainstream American than Cindy McCain inheriting a brewery.”
But the Obama campaign is preparing for the worst, planning to shore up Michelle with her own slick and quick war room staffed by top operatives from previous campaigns.