Shorter Kathleen ‘The Silk Magnolia’ Parker: What I like about Michelle Obama is that — unlike that horrible Hillary! — the woman knows her place.
You think I’m kidding?
… In recent years, as politics have become more broadly partisan and women have assumed more prominent roles, first ladies have become fairer game in the maelstrom we call the public square. Hillary Rodham Clinton infamously set off bonfires of inanities with her now innocuous-sounding remark that she was not “some little woman, standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.” Or that she wasn’t one to stay home and bake cookies….
Obama, though she holds a law degree from Harvard, has turned away from Clinton’s ambitious example and focused instead on the ultimate in domesticity — not just cooking but raising the food that goes to table. Her new cookbook, “American Grown,” features glossy photos and a personal diary of gardening in the city, albeit in the nation’s best yard with significant staff help…
Tracking first ladies through history is a tour of women’s development from disenfranchised chattel to champions of choice that also offers a glimpse into how conflicted we remain about women’s proper role. What upsets so many in Obama’s own political camp is that this first lady has so vividly chosen family over career, finding expression in the most elemental of endeavors — digging her hands into Mother Earth and offering nourishment to her young.
Such an explicit embrace of a traditional female role is nothing short of heresy to some. In fact, it is a brave stance by a wise woman whose priorities deserve to be celebrated.
There will be plenty of time for career and Big Issues beyond the family table once the children are grown — a lesson best learned sooner than too late.
Bless her heart, she added. How many dog whistles can you fit into one column?
Steve
Implying that a black person knows their place isn’t a dog whistle, unless you’re trying to help them win an election.
LanceThruster
You didn’t grow that!
Redshift
OT: Romney is against love, because it’s not “clear and non-descript.” Really. Go read the link; Romney doesn’t want to appear with a giant “LOVE” sign in Manassas, VA, and is having it taken down for his campaign event.
Mino
Did the Peggy have a secret daughter?
Punchy
Shorter KayPark — “Ms. Obama hasn’t paid a filed a single W-2 for FOUR YEARS! And peeps who I cannot name are pissed! I think. Not sure, don’t have any examples…”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
name three, Kathleen. Also, too, I’m pretty sure Michelle Obama worked full-time until the ’08 campaign kicked into high gear.
Yup, says Wiki. Malia was born in ’98, Sasha in ’01
Just Some Fuckhead
Shorter Kathleen Parker: At least Michelle Obama isn’t pumping out welfare babies!
Redshift
Don’cha just love how wingnuts always have to pretend they know what we’re thinking?
Have you ever heard of any Democrat who is “upset” at anything Michelle Obama has done? Why, I’m sure there are almost as many as there are Clinton voters who are “disappointed” with Obama and not supporting him this year.
beltane
I have never heard a single Democrat, Democratic-leaning person, or anyone else who could remotely be considered “Obama’s camp” express any disappointment whatsoever with Michelle Obama. These malcontents Kathleen Parker speaks of must be hiding out with Mitt Romney’s tax returns in an undisclosed location.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mino: I’ve always said, I don’t mean to be cruel when I say Kathleen Parker is a second-rate Peggy Noonan wannabe, it’s just that sometimes the truth can also be fun. Does K-Park include any observations on Sarah Palin’s choices as working mother?
beltane
@Redshift: It’s been said that Love is also against Mitt Romney. See, both sides do it.
peach flavored shampoo
Expect a hell of a lot more of this friction as Wingtard Romney tries to also campaign as Moderate Romney and the two camps start beating the shit outtie each other.
WereBear
I don’t know any liberals upset about FLOTUS growing a garden and talking about healthy children.
red dog
Let’s see we Dems are disappointed with the Pres and upset with Michelle but we are hilariously happy that they will spend four more years in the White House. Does that mean we know our place. Now, about Congress….
Jay C
So: comparing Michelle Obama favorably to Hillary Clinton? I’m cool with that, if it means that after 2016, Michelle will be run (and win) a term as Senator, and then go on to be Secretary of State. We could do a hell of a lot worse…
Ben Franklin
Trump is a parody of Trump.
This is akin to Olly North suggesting Kerry acknowledge Dubya’s combat record in exchange for calling off the Swiftboaters.
TaMara (BHF)
I’ve been waiting for an open thread to show off my kitty. He’s so handsome and here he is making friends with my newest dragon.
HJ and the Dragon
I came thisclose to going to the shelter and getting a dog this weekend…
JMS
I can’t really get exercised about this. This reads like “oh shit, I have a deadline and I need to write about something, anything. Hm…the plight of first ladies is always a good topic, and bipartisan, too.” If this were the worst thing written about Michelle Obama, she’s doing very very well. True, it makes Parker look like a hack, or perhaps just wishing she were on vacation instead of writing a column, but it could be much worse.
gogol's wife
I guess this shows how beaten down I am, but I’m just thankful that the general tenor of Parker’s essay is positive toward Michelle Obama. I’m grateful for crumbs these days.
jl
Parker dares use the phrase ‘bonfire of inanities’? In a piece like this?
So yeah, sure, Michelle Obama is the little wimmins, until agribusiness or pesticide companies get their undies in twist about some piece of her organic gardening and healthy food campaign. Then Parker will notice Michelle’s true nature as a totalitarian food police, inveigling us into living off of roots, bark and mud, sticking her uppity nose where it doesn’t belong!
I vaguely remember an interview with M and B, or maybe just Barack Obama, where he said Michelle told him she was sick of not having a normal life on several counts, and he was to get his political ambition project in high gear, and either shit, or not shit, but he WOULD be off the pot soon. She wasn’t going to spend her whole life sacrificing both a normal home life and career (a definite lose lose) while he chased political ambition and ran brutal campaign after campaign.
Did I remember that right? Doesn’t sound like a submissive little wimmins barefoot in the kitchen to me.
Edit: And if my memory is correct, we may have Michelle to thank for Obama running so ‘early’ and ‘unprepared’ in 2008. He was told to go out and pursue his dream, asap, now or never, SOGOTP, by his better half.
gogol's wife
@TaMara (BHF):
What a beautiful cat!
Ben Cisco
Those aren’t dog whistles, those are flugelhorns…
gene108
Michelle Obama had a very high paying job with that law degree from Harvard, working for the University of Chicago hospital.
I’m sure she could land another paying gig, if she wanted to right now, despite Secret Service objections.
She’s not working because her husband’s job has limited what she can do career wise right now.
I’d personally like more people to point out that Michelle actually had a successful career as an attorney, which she put on the back burner because of her husband’s Presidential ambitions.
The problem with Hillary is she was the first First Lady “candidate”, 20 years ago, who actually had her own career independent of her husband and that pissed off a lot of crazy-ass old geezers, who didn’t like the notion of women being equal partners to men.
bobbo
And you know that Eleanor Roosevelt was a class traitor not to mention a big ol’ lesbo! Just like Hilary!
Hal
youtube.com/watch?v=NefM2gVo9mw
bemused
@Redshift:
What an odd thing for a campaign to do but evidently nothing is too strange for Mitt’s campaign.
R-Jud
@TaMara (BHF):
You too, huh? I would say it’s something in the water, but I’m pretty sure we live about 5,000 miles apart.
rumpole
A malestrom is a whirlpool-a big one. People don’t hunt in them.
And so, she kills the language and the dicourse all at once.
Ash Can
Good fucking grief. Parker sounds like she’s talking about one of her house slaves.
Michelle Obama is the most glamorous, attractive, charismatic First Lady this nation has had since Jackie Kennedy, and perhaps ever, yet because of her skin color she has to maintain a far lower profile than a white First Lady with equal attributes ever would have had to, and has received far less press and public attention as well. Miz Parker seems very pleased with that state of affairs, doesn’t she?
Steve
@Redshift: It bothers me a little bit that someone as smart and capable of Michelle Obama has to submit to the “traditional First Lady role” just so she doesn’t get attacked like Hillary Clinton.
This is a different sort of thing from simply choosing family over career, which plenty of people do every day and I respect them whichever choice they make. This is more about the public role she is forced (in the political sense) to play.
This isn’t a criticism of Michelle Obama, of course, it’s just annoyance at the fact that the world works this way.
TaMara (BHF)
@R-Jud: Maybe it’s in the air! The back and forth in my mind would have made a Williams’ sister tennis match look tame.
Legalize
I can say pretty confidently that there is not a single Democrat, left-leaning, or otherwise sane person in American who has a problem with anything about Michelle Obama.
jl
@gene108: I think Michelle Obama is also creative, resourceful, and intelligent enough so that she can finesse the dreary home versus career dilemma, which I think is a false one for most upper income people. I think that bothers a lot of people, both men and women, but they cannot really say what the problem is.
I also think we have another example of dismissive femnizing of anything a women shows she can do well.
So now gardening and any kind of non industrial agriculture is little wimmins stuff? As is nutrition. As is writing a book? Ditto cooking, healthy, gourmet, or whatever.
Anything a woman, racial ethnic minority, youngin’, outsider does, cannot be good by all American he man standards, so it is dismissed. The dismissive inferior role is defined to encompass anything an outsider can do, except of course blowing stuff up, shooting, self righteous hating, and taking people’s money, which is the true domain of true All Amercian he mans, as our current crop of male GOP psychos demonstrates.
Baron Elmo
You could use a strawman of this magnitude for the climactic conflagration at Burning Man.
jl
BTW, out here in the Left Coast parts in pioneer days, a wife’s garden, and chicken coop, rabbit hutch, or goat yard, was usually sign of independence. From what I have read, the little wimmins did not usually submit eagerly to automatically giving away all the earnings from her produce or livestock or egg sales. And what first person accounts survive from my early CA ancestors, that was true in my family as well.
But now running a huge garden is the sign of ultimate domesticity? With Obama stumbling through looking confused because he can’t find the hamburger vines?
Dork
@peach flavored shampoo: That stance on wind would also not fly in Illinois, but since it’s already going dark blue, nobody cares.
Looks like Iowa Republicans either have to disown Romney and hand the state to Obama, or agree with Romney and hand their jobs to Democrats. Nice job, Willard.
The Moar You Know
So, my takeaway from that explosion of word vomit is this:
Democrats hate motherhood and apple pie. Literally.
R-Jud
@Legalize:
I do. We’re not blood relations, so I can’t, like, hang out with her at Thanksgiving, or go shopping for shoes (we wear the same size and everything!).
asiangrrlMN
@TaMara (BHF): Awwwww! Love the kitteh – so puuuuuurty (tell him I said handsome).
Michelle Obama is an amazing woman. She’s had a rich, full life, and I am sure she will continue to do great things throughout PBO’s presidency and after. The fact that Parker is trying to shoehorn her into some preconceived notion of what a ‘good’ First Lady is supposed to be – eh. I don’t give a fuck. It’s tired, second-rate, and boring.
Michelle Obama is more popular with Democrats than is the president, so Parker can drop that particular canard as well. I wish I had a Village job where I could pull things out of my flat yellow ass and state them as if they were facts.
Linda Featheringill
Michelle is something of an Earth Mother.
In addition to everything else.
Jim C
What a goofy description. Has the White House lawn won a contest? I don’t think Kathleen has any empirical evidence to back up the “nation’s best yard” tag. I don’t even think it’s the nation’s best house. A nice house, an expensive house, but best? Nah.
And, yeah, that’s what I thought was the dumbest part.
dogwood
I think Democrats have a lot more to be outraged about than this silly column. I’ve seen Parker speak highly of the First Lady before. But this is politics. If Parker wants to write something nice about Michelle without losing her conservative cred, she has to turn Michelle into the ultimate conservative wife and mother. Frankly, the Obamas appear to be a very conventional family. I have no idea if Michelle has been forced to play a submissive role for political reasons, but she appears to be a very happy woman. I doubt she’d lose any sleep over this column.
murakami
I voted in the Republican primary today, doing my very small part to keep teabaggers out of the state senate.
This was my first experience voting in a state with a voter ID law. I walked up with my drivers license in hand, verbally told the old ladies* who I was and that I was voting Republican. They were quite nice, found me in the database, and had me sign the book. I asked them if they needed to see my ID and they said ‘nah. you’re in the system.’ and off I went.
What a bloody fraud this whole thing is. I suppose if I wasn’t white and wasn’t pretending to be a Republican then I would have been carded.
* — it’s always old ladies, isn’t it?
meander
A nice “high road” comparison of Obama’s and Romney’s records on income and taxes from James Wimberley at the Washington Monthly’s Ten Mile Square. It’s simple and makes the point that Romney isn’t sharing anything. The data are in the public domain (of course, most of the entries for Romney’s column are “unknown”), so you could DIY and spread it around as you like.
scav
So the sheltered little home-bound child-feeding in her place wimminz shows up in the UK at the Olympics and utterly fails to insult a entire nation. I mean, that is textbook bog-standard usual day of the average stay-at-home 1950s-ad-view housewife.
This is getting to be a play-by-play description of the running battle between creaky stereotypes flitting about their craniums. Breaking UPDATE! from the shadow puppet show on the cave wall before me!
The Moar You Know
@peach flavored shampoo: Oh that’s going to be fun. The only wingnut-approved alternative energy program is one that uses styrofoam, coal, books, and airplane glue burned in a 55 gallon drum.
Kane
If Kathleen Parker had been following along, she would know that First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden have made military veterans and their families a priority.
Vets: Michelle Best-Ever First Lady
usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/12/30/vets-michelle-best-ever-first-lady
whitehouse.gov/joiningforces
BarbCat
@Redshift: That’s because the LOVE sculpture is by Robert Indiana – a gay man.
Elizabelle
PSA: Today is Sidney Poitier day on Turner Classic Movies.
“Patch of Blue” up at 6 p Eastern.
“Raisin in the Sun” at 8 EDT.
“To Sir with Love” at 10:15 EDT.
Infinitely better to watch the quiet dignity and character that Poitier brings than think about either Kathleen Parker or Romney Hood.
Olivia
@Redshift:
I am pretty sure she is referring to the same Democrats who think that all “imperfect” babies should be aborted. She can’t name a single one of those either.
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshift:
No, but there are voices in the Parker bint’s head that are saying that, so she goes with it.
Maude
@Kane:
I was waiting for someone to bring this up. Mrs. Obama doesn’t need attention and so we don’t hear about every little thing she does.
Villago Delenda Est
@Legalize:
My only problem with Michelle is that she’s Barack’s wife, not mine.
It’s s small point, but a crucial one.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: that injustice of fate has bugged me too, from time to time.
Edit: face it, Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden are best first and second lady team ever. And I second point commenter above made that it is odd Parker overlooked both of their efforts on Veteran’s affairs. I guess that did not fit Parker’s bogus story line.
Sly
Being born 50 years after your time apparently makes you see people who do not exist.
The Thin Black Duke
@Villago Delenda Est: Well played, sir!
Mike in NC
@Jim C:
Doesn’t even have a stinkin’ car elevator. Imagine that!
Patricia Kayden
Has any First Lady worked while their husband was the President? I doubt it. Not sure I’m understanding what Parker is getting at. Mrs. Clinton was vocal about healthcare, if I recall correctly. But otherwise, I’m sure she didn’t work outside the home. I doubt Mrs. Obama would get away with being vocal about any political policy anyways. I could just hear the Rightwing tearing her down if she tried.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (BHF): He’s so beautiful!
Steve
@Patricia Kayden: Hillary had an official job running Bill’s health care task force. I’m sure Michelle Obama could handle a similar policy job, but unfortunately we are required to squander her talent thanks to the political lesson we learned from Hillary’s experience. It’s a shame, but that’s life.
Bruce S
Be thankful that the insanity of the GOP has embarrassed Parker to the point of conjuring inanities that are relatively benign compared to the hard core. The fact is, Parker is totally irrelevant as a commentator. She can’t bring herself to embrace the obvious – which in this case isn’t that Michelle Obama has (imaginary) detractors among Democrats, which she doesn’t, but that even in the role of a “grow-your-own” healthy food advocate she’s the object of a hate campaign by the politically influential right-wing blowhards like Rush. Parker’s too sane to have much in the way of friends or influence in the GOP camp, having been displaced in the relentless devolution of female conservative commentary by the unrestrained harpies, the Palins and Coulters. She’s a less witty analog to Chris Buckley. This nonsense is her best shot at this stage of a game she’s no well longer equipped to play. In her defense, I’ll suggest that her main problem as a “conservative pundit” is that she’s not evil enough. This kind of tepid stuff doesn’t cut it with the audience she wishes she still had.
Darkrose
@TaMara (BHF): Awww! What a lovely boy!
jenn
@TaMara (BHF): (a) wow, that’s a beautiful cat! (b) get the dog! get the dog! HJ needs a canine to boss around!
dogwood
@Steve:
I
You are coming close to making Parker’s point with this statement. Who are you to decided that Mrs. Obama is “squandering” her talents? Please provide evidence that she wants a policy job. Sheesh.
jl
@dogwood:
It is funny how Michelle Obama actually does have a policy job, as far as the GOP is concerned, anytime her gardening and health project steps on some big rich fat toes, ain’t it?
But then when some third rate hack GOP pundit needs to type up some filler to get paid, the garden is a divisive wedge issue inside the liberal Democrats, since anything except ‘blow shit up’ and ‘stealing money’ is submissive wimmins work, and Michelle is being all totally domestic, in her commie totalitarian social engineering fricken garden.
What a crock.
Michelle Obama is so far beyond what these retro goofballs can imagine, I think that is why none of their little smear projects touch her. She is just totally out of their league and out of their range.
It is lucky for us that two gifted people like Michelle Obama and Jill Biden got the prominence that they have. Nice change from unimaginative total conventional retro doofuses that dominate our political media.
aimai
Its creepy to me that she turns Hillary Clinton’s statement into an attack on good country people like Tammy Wynette and all the homemakers of America (among whom Tammy Wynette represents the full time working woman, btw) when it arose in the context of her being stripped of all pride and marital privacy in an interview about her husband’s infidelity. And the entire right wing went on to excoriate her, after Monica, because she did “stand by her man.”
aimai
EJ
What upsets so many in Obama’s own political camp is that this first lady has so vividly chosen family over career [citation needed]
Steve
@dogwood: I didn’t say she wants a policy job, which neither you nor I have any idea about. I said she very obviously could handle an important policy job just like Hillary did, but because Hillary’s foray into policy was deemed too controversial, that option is now off the table as a political matter. Which I consider a shame.
Nellcote
Way to fucking devalue the real work that FLOTUS does with veterans and their families as well as outreach to major corporations to take baby steps in making food more nutritious/available in certain neighborhoods as well as inspiring pro chefs to get involved in outreach to schools in feeding kids healthier food. And let’s not forget the Let’s Move program to get kid’s to learn how to play outside again.
Kathleen Parker is a bitch and I am furious at this column.
Is this white people puking up their racism day or something? What the hell!
PaminBB
K-Pa has some serious mother (and father) issues”
“My mother died when I was 3. Second mother, married when I was 5, divorced when I was 12. Third mother was just my 10th grade. I knew that one wasn’t going to work. The other two came after I left home. I was gone at 17. I skedaddled.” She calls herself the daughter of a Yankee pilot and a Southern belle, by which she means that her father was stationed at a U.S. Air Force Base in South Carolina when he met her mother, a local girl. ”
So, I think she is pretty confused in this area.
Joe Max
It’s choc full of dog whistles, but the teabaggers will whine about Parker saying something nice about that Nobama bitch.
You’re messing with their cognitive dissonance!
Bex
That column made me want to barf all the healthy vegetables I just ate for dinner. Thanks for nothing KP…you blithering idiot.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Michelle Obama has “significant staff help” while Ann Romney raised five delinquents, and an Olympic competing horse, all by her lonesome, hardworking, self.
gvg
I don’t have a problem with Michelle Obama. she never ran for my vote in any office and I think our gossip crazy nation likes reading useless stories about the rich and famous too much, in other words we are limiting all spouses of high office and it’s a shame. On the other hand she is an attorney and I can see a lot of situations where that would be a conflict of interest or just a perceived conflict so there are some reasons all spouses probably should be rather limited. Attorney isn’t the only career where this could be the case either. I appreciate that she probably understood that and isn’t going to make me fret. I do happen to think conflict of interest is pretty important and not always looked out or (Lieberman’s wife the lobbyist!) In summary Parker doesn’t understand Democrats.