Michelle Obama today said that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.”
Really proud of her country for the first time? Michelle Obama is 44 years old. She has been an adult since 1982. Can it really be there has not been a moment during that time when she felt proud of her country? Forget matters like the victory in the Cold War; how about only things that have made liberals proud — all the accomplishments of inclusion? How about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991? Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s elevation to the Supreme Court? Or Carol Moseley Braun’s election to the Senate in 1998? How about the merely humanitarian, like this country’s startling generosity to the victims of the tsunami? I’m sure commenters can think of hundreds more landmarks of this sort. Didn’t she even get a twinge from, say, the Olympics?
Mrs. Obama was speaking at a campaign rally, so it is easy to assume she was merely indulging in hyperbole. Even so, it is very revealing.
It suggests, first, that the pseudo-messianic nature of the Obama candidacy is very much a part of the way the Obamas themselves are feeling about it these days. If they don’t get a hold of themselves, the family vanity is going to swell up to the size of Phileas Fogg’s hot-air balloon and send the two of them soaring to heights of self-congratulatory solipsism that we’ve never seen before.
Second, it suggests the Obama campaign really does have its roots in New Class leftism, according to which patriotism is not only the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the first refuge as well — that America is not fundamentally good but flawed, but rather fundamentally flawed and only occasionally good. There’s something for John McCain to work with here.
And third, that Michelle Obama — from the middle-class South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, Princeton 85, Harvard Law 88, associate at Sidley and Austin, and eventually a high-ranking official at the University of Chicago — may not be proud of her country, but her life, like her husband’s, gives me every reason to be even prouder of the United States.
This is what passes for “intellectual” thought on the coasts. And those that find this thinking absurd are “anti-intellectual”.
well I’m glad to at last have a “clean” name to call our “cosmopolitan president”
I thought the Contentions bloggers would be all over this story this morning….maybe you’re working on it as we speak.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123206759616688285.html
Our first bohemian president? Cool.
Her “living abroad” experience probably consists of a semester in Quebec.
Abe, you are right to mock Eaves. She is absurd. However, I would challenge your assertion that she represents the “enlightened circle of smarty-pants who hated George W. Bush, feared Sarah Palin, and voted in our next president.” Demographically, my guess is she represents a tiny minority of American voters. Her ‘enlightened circle’ alone could not have elected Obama president. There is more to his popularity than cosmopolitan chic, as you well know.
It’s only absurd if you ignore “in part because of” in the author’s explanation and pretend dishonestly that this was Obama’s main attraction as a candidate. Obama has broad appeal, and in ways many other president’s never could. He spent part of his youth outside America; he is biracial — for those in these growing categories that is two more reasons to feel some kinship and hope that this man is especially suited to understanding their experience. And isn’t that what we all want in a democratic leader — someone who sees the world as we do and would make decisions based on similar value systems?
If America had wanted an uneducated, unworldy dullard, who prefers mysticism to reason, well, we had that option. We chose to go with the smart, cool guy with a global perspective. Sue us.
#7
“If America had wanted an uneducated, unworldly dullard, who prefers mysticism to reason, well, we had that option.” Yes, we decided to call him Vice President.
#8
“If America had wanted an uneducated, unworldly dullard, who prefers mysticism to reason, well, we had that option.” Yes, we decided to call him Vice President. Dost
That’s no way to talk about Dick Cheney.
“Discovering last week that my new hairdresser was from Uzbekistan made me feel reassured that all was right in the world.”
One wonders what the ethnicity of her previous hairdresser was. I haven’t had a haircut by a native English speaker in decades.
Abe, just wanted to let you know that your sheet is back from the laundry, bleached and starched as you requested; and with newly basted eyeholes.
Good hunting!
#9, from what I have seen Dick Cheney dismantles every journalist and wannabe veep with the greatest of ease. Disagreement on policy doesn’t make the man an idiot.
Good find, Abe. Eaves is quite unintentionally hilarious here. As a fellow world-roamer, I have to laugh at the idea that the company of the extremely insular from foreign lands is “cosmopolitan” merely because they are foreign.
What many Americans would discover, if they had the opportunity to live overseas, is that there is an enclave of generically Western-oriented cosmopolites just about everywhere; they are, socially and culturally, insular as all get out; and the real local people have most of the same traits average Americans do. That is, they are pretty cool if you get to know them — they don’t travel further than the nearest border very often, if at all — and their knowledge of foreign countries is mainly from slanted, soundbite news coverage, and tribal fable (with, in some places, a big dollop of conspiracy theory in the mix).
What I don’t think Obama understands, from his particular footloose history, is the enduring value of ordinary life, lived locally, and untinkered with. It’s great for a few people to have priorities other than the mundane ones that occupy most of us, and keep us tied to localities and lifestyles through families, friends, land, jobs, and habit. But we can’t all live in an untethered way, nor do most people want to. That’s actually good for society, which remains stable because people have a stake in their immediate surroundings.
It makes one apprehensive to have a prospective president whose history gives us no reason to suppose that he understands these very basic realities about his people.
it’s called Generational Change. i guess we will have to just live with it.
Well, my barber is an Uzebi woman, and that doesn’t make me feel more connected with the wide world. And she’s Jewish, too; “rootless cosmopolitan” par excellence.
but yes, my guess is that the writer, when she speaks of “college educated,” means people who went to the prestigious private colleges like the one she went to. After all, part of the scorn of people like her was that Sarah Palin graduated from –shudder– the University of idaho.
“feared Sarah Palin”?
Are you kidding? Did you ever listen to the woman speak? Dumb as a post.
Alex Bensky — indeed. Whereas my objection to the University of Idaho is on the sensible basis that no one has ever heard of their football team.