House of Eratosthenes

What a wonderful world in which we’d be living if, right up until election day, every time someone asked Michelle’s husband a question, they’d immiedately follow with “by the way Senator, I’ve been proud of America all my adult life and then some.” Do it until he starts squirming, and then keep right on doing it.

Our nation’s next President issued a statement about this thing his boneheaded wife trotted out to embarrass the bejeezus out of him on Monday…

What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America…Because she’s pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she’s not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she’s encouraged.

Michelle herself made sure her own explanation was properly synchronized on this point…

What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud in how Americans are engaging in the political process…For the first time in my lifetime, I’m seeing people rolling up their sleeves in a way that I haven’t seen and really trying to figure this out — and that’s the source of pride that I was talking about.

One problem, though: This is not consistent with Ms. Obama’s remark.

I’ve noticed there is this tendency for the last four years or so on both sides of the fence, although democrats have been specializing in this somewhat because they’ve been forced to. Embarrassing things are qualified, subsequently, as having been taken out of “context” when if you actually take the time and trouble to look up the context, you’ll see that they were not.

And furthermore, when the invevitable “what he/she/I meant to say” statement comes out, you’ll see it isn’t a more careful phrasing of an innocuous statement that was worded a little bit unfortunately. No, you’ll see the backpedaling is something that says a completely different thing, often about a completely different subject.

And then you’ll see this snotty derision directed at anyone who might have taken those original remarks at face value. Not just political opponents. Anybody who took the words seriously.

There’s something else going on, something I first noticed when Monica Lewinsky’s ex-boyfriend’s wife’s so-called husband first began running for President sixteen years ago. Although it had been going on since before that. It’s that name “America,” and it concerns other political figures, people who have good things to say about it. The word itself requires more specificity, it seems to me. Too many people are allowed to shower great-feeling platitudes upon what they call “America,” such as “greatest country in the history of the world” or some such. And if you analyze that all-important “context” you see they’re talking about a vision of something that exists, today, only between their ears. They’re proud of that. They see this opportunity to change the country into something that will make them proud — their pride has nothing to do with anything that presently exists.

But if you listen to their remarks casually, you might be tempted to think they’re talking about pride in the country now. The pride that comes with love. The pride a mother has for a newborn baby. And that’s not what’s being said there…what’s under discussion is the pride a football fan has for his team which he is sure is about to win a game. But if it doesn’t happen, forget it.

A very critical delineation which is not being made. This is a bad thing. A lot of us who are genuinely proud of the country and think at least some of what the country does, should remain unchanged…are being fooled into supporting candidates who want to change exactly that.

But that doesn’t have much to do with Michelle Obama — who is not proud, up until now, and is not afraid to say so. Unless there are some actual consequnces involved, and then she’ll play John Kerry’s patented “you’re such a drooling clueless idiot for hearing what I said and making me actually responsible for it” card.

I’m tempted to say more, but there’s no way I can take our future First Lady down any more pegs than another woman of diverse racial background named Michelle did yesterday.

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