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May 06, 2008
Michelle Obama’s Gospel Of Misery aka The Audacity of Hopelessness
America’s Unhappiest Millionaire
National Review Online
By Yuval Levin
By her husband’s logic, Michelle Obama must be a heavily armed xenophobic religious zealot, because boy is she bitter. A speech delivered by Mrs. Obama in North Carolina last Friday is characteristic of her peculiar recent performances on the stump. It is an hour-long talk to supporters who just want something to cheer about, and who get some opportunities at the outset, but then find themselves treated to a profoundly and relentlessly negative vision of American life.
She first offers, as she often does in her appearances, a kind of victim’s history of the 2008 Democratic primary race. In Mrs. Obama’s telling, the Obama campaign becomes not an extraordinary mix of strategy and skill, but a sad reflection on the unfairness of American life.
The bar, we are told, is always being raised just as her husband is about to reach it.
"They said he couldn’t win because he didn’t have an organization. Then he built an organization, so they said he couldn’t win because he didn’t have money. He raised money, so they said he couldn’t win because he couldn’t win caucuses. He won caucuses, so they said he couldn’t win because he couldn’t win primaries."
In the tone and substance of the story is the implication that the fact that this race isn’t over is evidence of a profound injustice done to her husband.
“The bar is constantly changing for this man,” she tells us.
Of course, the only relevant bar in an election is whether you win a majority, and Sen. Obama has yet to win a majority of Democratic delegates. If he did, the race would be over. The bar’s not moving.
But this tale of woe is really only an introduction to a larger and more sweeping list of bars getting raised just as hard working people are reaching for them.
“So the bar has been shifting and moving in this race,” she says, “but the irony is, the sad irony is, that’s exactly what is happening to most Americans in this country.”
In Michelle Obama’s America, everybody’s suffering, no one has time to make any friends, no one earns enough to eke out a living anymore, and the bar of success is always being moved just out of reach.
“Folks are struggling like never before,” she says, and in a nation struggling like never before, society cannot stand the strain. "
In such a state of debilitating terror, of course, we can have no hope for the next generation.
“Our fear,” Mrs. Obama says, “is helping us to raise a nation of young doubters, young people who are insular and they’re timid, and they don’t try because they already heard us tell them why they can’t succeed.”
It turns out, also, that it didn’t use to be this way. In fact, a great bulk of Mrs. Obama’s speech is devoted to nostalgia for a simpler time — an odd approach for a progressive, yet an altogether common one on the left today. She describes a steady downward path from that golden age of distant memory.
“We know where we’re living,” she tells the slightly confused audience, “this is where we are right now, and this has been the case for my entire lifetime: that trajectory of hope has gotten more difficult for regular folks.”
Her listeners have to wonder exactly what she has in mind by “regular folks” .
Her husband, of course, manages a peppier and more upbeat stump speech, but in fact the same dark view of American life permeates his rhetoric too. Both Obamas seem to think the country is deeply depressed, and in need of a spiritual, economic, and political savior.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
Is there nothing Michelle is happy about? I mean anything? Did she at least enjoy her lunch? Maybe see a butterfly? See an image of a teddy bear in the cloud formations in the sky? Get a hug and kiss from her husband? A hug from her children? A smile from a friend?
To say that we in this day and age are struggling like never before is to be ignorant of what came before you. Ignorant and ungrateful.
Democratic election strategy 101:
Tear down the image of the US, but tell everyone, that if elected, you will fix it all. Nowhere has this been on greater display than the democrats misery tour 2008.
Posted by Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 03:47 AM
Comments
The bar is always being raised on all of us! I don't care who you are, all of us have gone through that time when it was NEVER good enough for the boss or our parents, even.
Bitchelle is making excuses. And I wonder why anyone would want to put this family into the White House. Whiny butts! Wouldn't you start to wonder, gee, if he sees America as this miserable, how is he going to make it better? (he hasn't said anything about it yet other than throw money at the problem.)
He has money, but he's this unhappy? Just goes to show you, money and power do not buy happiness.
Posted by: Lynn at May 6, 2008 05:19 AM
She is an Ingrate!!! I lived 3 years in the black section of a mid sized city, many a Sunday morning was spent listening to the neighbor ladies up and down the block vent their frustration over coffee at my place, Miz Obamination has never wanted, never gone with out, never had to raise a houseful of kids with out a husband, never had to deal with the abuse and drugs or alcoholism. WTF do I know? Cry me a friggin' river you ungrateful bitch!!!
Posted by: Jack at May 6, 2008 08:52 AM
This woman is safety-wired to the pissed ffposition isn't she?
Posted by: GM Cassel, AMH1(AW) RET at May 6, 2008 08:57 AM
Life's a struggle and it's about time Michelle Obama learns to deal with it. Her and her husband are promising people some type of utopia and these stupid fools believe he'll deliver it.
Posted by: BobF at May 6, 2008 09:16 AM
Sounds like Jimmy Carters woes of national malaise. This woman is just a bitter, angry bitch. She will be so under any circumstances.
Maybe the better times she is refering to were the Reagan Years, heh, heh!
Posted by: TomR at May 6, 2008 10:53 AM
Why are all the Muzzies waiting to hear Ms. Obama speak. So much for his Christian upbringing.
This man is damger to this country.
Posted by: Mark at May 6, 2008 05:04 PM
The written and spoken words of Michelle Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright are more typical of what is preached in black churches, taught in the public schools, and imposed on students in collegiate academia then the main stream media and political pundits would want us to believe.
I give credit to Michelle Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright for not sugar coating or denying their racist, ethnic, anti-American, anti-Jew, self-imposed victimhood, and other hateful false and depressing thinking that is poisoning the country. It is unfortunate that too many blacks and liberals buy into this crap instead of joining the melting pot of other Americans who are positively living their lives and making the country better for themselves and their families.
Michelle Obama claims about the bar being raised every time that Barack achieves something. Well, if Barack and Michelle Obama make it to the White House the bar would be lowered so much that a cockroach wouldn't be able to crawl under it.
Posted by: Les at May 6, 2008 07:34 PM
Lynn, well said, amazing that she thinks raisingi the bar is a personal attack on them. sheesh
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 07:37 PM
Jack, Ingrate ir right!! She sure is and it steams me to think she could win, GRRRRRRRRRR
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 07:40 PM
GM Cassel, AMH1(AW) RET, LOL love how you put that!! Yes she sure is!!
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 07:42 PM
Bob yep , those voting for them are fools, I agree.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 07:46 PM
Tom yes very bitter and I don't understand why. sigh
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 08:06 PM
Mark, your right, when I saw this photo I remembered the other ones of past speeches of Barack Obama and how there always have been Muslims in the audience for him too. He has such a big Muslim following, I guess he is the one infidel they think is ok......oh wait maybe it is his Muslim upbringing.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 08:12 PM
Les your right, if they make it and they very well could, the bar sure will be lowered big time.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 6, 2008 08:14 PM
