""
"In her defense, Steve Benen parses both the text of Michelle Obama's remarks and the seething racial biases of her right-wing interlocutors. Unfortunately, his well meaning analysis (or perhaps psychoanalysis) only contributes to the conservative caricature of the liberal mind:
"I'm not sure what Michelle Obama meant, but being a black person with privilege and access often makes you more aware of American inequality, not less, and it wouldn't surprise me if that's what Michelle was referring to. Try living in say, New Orleans or Newark for a few years and see how proud of your country it makes you."
Michelle Obama's presumably accidental misstep is neither as reprehensible or as justifiable as her critics and defenders alternately claim. But if she said what she meant, then politically speaking hers is the disdain that dare not speak its name. Coming just two weeks after her hesitation when asked if she could see herself "working to support the first woman nomination" of Hillary Clinton ("I'd have to think about that. I'd have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone"), Mrs. Obama didn't do her husband - or her party - any favors.
So for at least the next 24 hours, Americans will once again be treated to the conservatives' nauseating chant of "liberals hate America." It will be all the more galling given that the selective disgust for groups of Americans - blacks, immigrants, gays, and above all, Muslims - is now at the center of the GOP's Party of Hate agenda."" |
