Sigh. Seriously, I'm sick of this shit. Michelle Obama talks about keeping their family going during the campaign, and it gets turned into a slam at Hillary Clinton. Meow. Which is a fair conclusion if you only take this part:
"Our view is that if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House."
Oooh, burn. If you're 10 like Drudge. Or the tons of other stories that picked it out.
Except, oops. The rest of the quote goes like this:
"So, so we've adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first, so while he's traveling around, I do day trips. That means I get up in the morning, I get the girls ready, I get them off, I go and do trips, I'm home before bedtime. So the girls know that I was gone somewhere, but they don't care. They just know that I was at home to tuck them in at night, and it keeps them grounded, and, and children, the children in our country have to know that they come first. And our girls do and that’s why we’re doing this. We’re in this race for not just our children, but all of our children."
Not nearly as bitchy, huh? I mean, come on. Both campaigns are taking enough real shots at each other, there's no need to create a cat fight.
Too Sense and Media Matters have more.
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And even if this had been a case of a candidate or spouse taking a cheap shot, it makes no sense because Clinton doesn't have any children at home (unless you count Bill ^_~) and I think she earned her stripes when she kept her family together during the entire Monica Lewinksi debacle. But as always, no woman is ever good enough and people will try to misconstrue what someone has said in order to fuel their own goals.
Though I should add...no woman should have to earn her stripes at all.
That's funny that you say she kept her family together during the Monica thing, because she is also widely criticized for not leaving him during the Monica mess "she doesn't respect herself..." etc. As we know, we can't win!
Ridiculous that the press (and by "press" I mean Fox) turned this into a knock on Hilary, although there is no inication of that! Give me a break. I am slightly bothered, and confused, by the suggestion that you have to be a good housewife and mother in order to be president. hmmm
Yeah, let's ignore the fact that she already raised a healthy, seemingly intelligent, surprisingly level-headed (considering her life) daughter into adulthood. He didn't pop out a couple more little kids for the campaign so OBVIOUSLY she's unworthy.
I have mixed feelings about Michelle Obama. Barack constantly talks about how she is smarter and better at giving speeches than he is - so why the hell isn't SHE the one running for president? If she's really this uber-ambitious person, I think it's pathetic that her only avenue to success is directly through her husband - or rather, I think it's pathetic that we still live in a country where often times women's only avenue to success is through a man.
I also hate how she says "they" put the girls first. As far as I can tell from her statement, SHE puts the girls first while her husband goes around touring the country. I'd be fine with that, but then she has to spew rhetoric about family values and be in photo shoots where she's behind Obama in the "support" position, and I guess in the end I'm not really mad at her so much as mad at this system. I'm sick of candidates' wives being such a big part of the political process without actually having any real power - they're judged, expected to be competent, expected to do quite a bit of work as potential First Ladies - but at the end of the day, their husband goes down in history books as president, and they're just the little wife. There are exceptions to this - Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, etc. - but let's face it, usually the guy gets all the glory here.
ARGH.
Maybe he's being self-deprecating.
I have mixed feelings about Michelle Obama. Barack constantly talks about how she is smarter and better at giving speeches than he is - so why the hell isn't SHE the one running for president? If she's really this uber-ambitious person, I think it's pathetic that her only avenue to success is directly through her husband...............
1) She is very succesful in her own career
2) I don't think she wants to be a politician
From what I read when he was deciding to run for Senate, and then for President, was that she was a bit reluctant about the whole idea. It's not her dream. But she's backing him up.
I do agree that the first lady/political wife thing is a pretty horrible set-up.
I think Obama IS being self-deprecating when he says his wife is smarter than he is yadayada. but what I hear in his self-deprecation is a familiar, to me, way in which liberal patriarchs overcompensate for the privileges they enjoy at the expense of their wives.
Barack addressed this issue specifically on The Daily Show. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=91960&is_large=true
it may have been the second clip
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=91996&is_large=true
One thing that I really liked about Howard Dean was the way that he didn't parade his family around as a showpiece.
Sounds to me like another way to show that Hillary is going for a position normally held by a male and that she should be standing behind a man, "keeping care of his house," so he can run the race. And of course, the media loves the idea of a cat fight so they'll try to make one where there isn't.
I heard this story on Air America radio this morning. Basically, they are going to attack Hillary any time and any way they can. I heard that they are doing this to Hillary and Obama because the Republicans feel they are the biggest threat (e.g. they have the best chance at winning). Apparently Karl Rove's goal in leaving the WH was to concentrate on attacking Hillary through the campaign. I suspect that we will see uglier and uglier things go on in this campaign, particularly in regards to Hillary, from the Republicans til this thing is over or, if democrats win, until democrats aren't in power anymore.
Yeah, this really pissed me off too. Why not question the assumption that she was digging at another woman? The Times has done wrong by its coverage of the potential first ladies.