Via Hyacinth Girl comes this bizarre, pathetic article in the Times Online (of what used to be called the London Times before, I guess, it became a faux pas to remind people that London exists) about Michelle Obama. The article is entitled “Michelle Obama: a new type of First Lady” and might as well have the subhead “black women are prettier than white women; now it can be told!” It reads like something that would be posted in the gossip column of a college newspaper, to turn up later tacked anonymously on the notice boards of sororities, leading to midnight hair-pulling fights in the girls’ dorm.
The article is all gushing, fawning praise for Michelle Obama’s looks and cat-claw hisses of various kinds on the inadequacy of several other leaders’ wives, including, for some reason, the wife of France’s President Sarkozy (who, unless Mrs. Obama can speak French and sing like a chanteuse, can run rings around our new First Lady in the accomplishments department). Miss Sarah Vine writes that Mrs. Obama’s “demeanour is a reassuring mixture of sassy and self-deprecating.” Personally I get the impression that she is tense and angry underneath all the smiles. But that may just have been campaign jitters and memories of her life as the seventeenth child of a poor black sharecropper who had to work her way through college by washing the soiled menstrual cloths of rich white women. That would leave me looking a tad hard and bitter too, and I too might want to give my face Angry Clown eyebrows just so people will be too terrified to write anything about me but sycophantic praise.
8 Responses to “Sisterhood is forever”
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November 6th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Michelle will be as universally loved as Hillary.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I’m actually thinking more favorably about Hillary these days. Still wouldn’t vote for her, probably. But it was the snarks about the pantsuits that got me. Guys, you try wearing pantyhose and skirts practically 24/7 and tell us you wouldn’t be grabbing those polyester matching sets off the racks as fast as your hands could grab.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
What a vomit-inducing article! (The Times Online one, I mean.) Michelle Obama has a huge chip on her shoulder…she will make Hillary Clinton look like Nancy Reagan.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Sometimes I hate my fellow women.
Far, far too many of them are ruled by:
a. emotion
b. the belief that “tokenism” (i.e., getting “one of their own” into high office) is more important than merit
c. fashion and appearance, to the detriment of being able to understand substance
I like being female, but I wish so many of my fellow double-X bearers weren’t such massive FAIL in the application-of-intellect department.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Couldn’t we just call ’em all “suits?”
Well, sure we could, but you can’t sneer as much with that as you can with “pantsuit.”
I have a feeling the world is in for a terrible shock when Michelle shows her true self.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Funny this didn’t come up re Condi Rice–with black women being more attractive and all. Personally, I think somebody got a hold of Michelle and cleaned her up good before the Obamas hit the national news. Early pix of her? Not so much pretty.
“memories of her life as the seventeenth child of a poor black sharecropper who had to work her way through college by washing the soiled menstrual cloths of rich white women” Hilarious.
I love it when British newspapers try to comment on America. I swear, goat herders in Kazakhstan understand the US better than British journalists. Who has EVER thought of Barbara Bush as meek? She’s your intimidating grandma who follows you around with a Rob Roy in her hand asking you about your sex life. And Mamie Eisenhower was hilarious and down-to-earth. People *adored* her. But more importantly, there is absolutely no evidence that Michelle O is “manifestly clever” or that she keeps Barack from wandering off into traffic. If anything, it’s clear that BHO is way, way more accomplished.
But a minor point re Mme. Sarkozy: I’m not sure French people should get extra credit for speaking French.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Re: French — well, you know what I mean. I did think that when I wrote it, and I decided to leave that in there anyway. Most people think French is a complicated language that is difficult to pronounce. It isn’t — at least, not if you’ve taken both French and German like I did in high school. (There’s an old joke my grandfather used to tell — doughboys coming back from France after World War I were astonished at how smart the French were. “Even the little kids could speak French!”)
I think Condi Rice is much better looking than Michelle Obama. Just my personal opinion.
November 6th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Once on vacation, I was sitting on the edge of a fountain in Venice, and this little girl came up and plopped down next to me. She showed me her plastic necklace and started going on and on about it. After she left, I did catch myself thinking, “She speaks excellent Italian.”