The Post shares some tidbits from an advance copy of Michelle Obama’s upcoming book, Becoming, which will be released on Tuesday. Reporter Krissah Thompson says that in the book, Ms. Obama lays “bare her deep, quaking disdain for Trump.”
I suspect we’ll all say amen to this passage about Trump’s racist birther nonsense:
“The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks,” she writes. “What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.”
None of us will, Ms. Obama. And, as we’ve seen, Trump’s reckless blather has since acquired a body count. A deranged bigot in Kansas killed an Indian engineer after shouting anti-immigrant slogans that could have come straight from a Trump rally. The Nazi who murdered 11 people in Pittsburgh cited the “caravan” hysteria as his primary motivation. The MAGA bomber’s incompetence at bomb-building was the only thing that prevented more Trump-inspired carnage.
Ms. Obama had this to say about Trump’s misogyny as revealed by the pussy-grabbing conversation caught on a hot mic:
“It was an expression of hatred that had generally been kept out of polite company, but still lived in the marrow of our supposedly enlightened society — alive and accepted enough that someone like Donald Trump could afford to be cavalier about it.”
I’m glad Ms. Obama called Trump’s revolting sexism what it is — hatred. That gets glossed over way too much. It’s not “locker room talk.” It’s not “boys will be boys.” It’s not “he has no filter.” It’s an expression of contempt and hatred for half of the world’s population. A man in Tallahassee recently acted on that hate, killing two women at a yoga studio.
Thompson reports that Ms. Obama “tried to block out [Trump’s] election.” Me too, last real FLOTUS. Me too.
Anyhoo, I don’t think I’ve ever read a first lady’s memoir, but I plan to make an exception in this case.
HeleninEire
Oh please, oh please let him rage-tweet about Michelle’s “low IQ.”
Emma
Me too. Usually I will read political biographies but not autobiographies. This time I plan to binge read Hillary and Michelle during the long Christmas holidays.
Snarki, child of Loki
I’m looking forward to seeing Trump’s posthumous autobiography.
Not reading it, mind you. Just seeing it.
Melusine
I miss having a reluctant First Lady with the class and grace and dignity to serve her country with distinction anyway.
Someone may have posted this before, but Contrapoints offers a fascinating and nuanced look at incel culture. Always enjoy her perspective.
Platonailedit
Here is to a classy FLOTUS. Da kenyan is a lucky stiff. May her book sell in millions.
Kay
Melania’s a birther too:
I don;t care to see the Trumps birth certificates, but I sure hope we see their tax returns and I think we might.
Raoul
Reading this a.m. about Whittaker and World Patent Marketing, I can see why Rump was attracted — the guy is a Trump U fanboi. Right down to the $25M settlement.
And now he’s acting A.G. The frunking GOP is amazing. Amazingly horrible. But we knew that.
@Emma: Same. I am not a person who reads autobiographies, but Michelle’s? Yes, please!
Frankensteinbeck
@HeleninEire:
I’m expecting a lot of acting out in the coming days, although admittedly the bar is now so high it’s hard to tell. Partly, Trump is already finding that Mueller is not as easy to stop as just inserting a new boss. Much more than that, he has been relying heavily on the Republican house to not merely not investigate him, but fanatically cover for him. That’s going in the trash. When the new congress begins all his secrets will become public, and nothing he can think of will help.
Seriously, just think about the outrageous lengths the House has gone to to protect him, how constant and powerful an effect that has been and how much we’ve dwelled on it. Think about how utterly pissed off the Democrats on the committees have been about it. Think about that protection reversing. I assure you Trump is thinking about it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I want to see her naturalization papers, the real papers.
Kay
I hope the racist birther movement the President and the First Lady promoted to advance their careers has a place in history books. It’s one of those things that will make their descendants cringe in shame. Someone wonderful and talented should cover it- from far Right racist fringe to the President of the United States and the First Lady. I’d buy that book.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
She’s as nasty and mean spirited as her husband and everything she does and says proves it. They’re both nasty pieces of work- hateful people. She gets a pass which is fine with me- she doesn’t have any power- but let’s not kid ourselves. Nothing she has done or said gives any indication she’s any better than her sleazy husband.
MazeDancer
Right on, Betty C.
Married to last real POTUS.
Going to start calling her LRF. Because that’s who she is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Frankensteinbeck: I seldom watch Chris Hayes any more, but he had Adam Schiff on last night, so I watched that segment this morning. Schiff is not kidding around. Trump has no idea what’s coming.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: She’s prettier. That’s about it. And, obviously, low bar.
Mary G
Michelle Obama is one of the very few people Twitler has not attacked. But between the midterms, the pushback on Whitaker, and this he may not be able to restrain himself. It won’t go well for him.
Raoul
Jebus. Ruth Marcus has a piece up referencing Whitaker calling Marburg v Madison wrongly decided. He would throw out 210 years of Supreme Court precedent and kick the leg out of our tripartite government balance.
Yow.
Droppy
I am going to get the Audible version because FLOTUS reads it herself and I want to hear her say all those words. I love the Obamas in a “fan” kind of way, but I also admire the hell out of them. We are going to look back at them from our dying campfires underneath the overpasses as the final best hope we had.
Betty Cracker
@Frankensteinbeck: Illegally appointing that kook Whitaker as acting AG is a manifestation of Trump’s panic.
Raoul
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Calling him “Little Adam” on twitter isn’t going to be enough? C’mon, Donnie is a master genius amazebals tactician.
(I need a little absurdity this morning)
debbie
I was sure Trump’s crack about the “Obama regime” during his press conference would have generated a lot of angry tweeting.
mad citizen
Two random BJ thoughts/questions: I think Cole promised the site would have changes/load better post-election, but it still seems wonky to me. It seems at times when I have BJ up my whole home PC slows and grinds to a standstill.
2: People always talk about bringing green baloons out to events, but on my monitors the right side of the balloon is blue, and the left side is teal. I don’t see any green.
Chyron HR
@Kay:
Wow, all the grace and wit of a #Demexit Twitter bot.
TS (the original)
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m not so sure he has a clue as to what is about to happen. He is not a student of history and is convinced he is invincible. He has already mentioned working with the democrats in the house – he thinks they will fold as did the GOP. He is in for a surprise – not before time.
rikyrah
@Kay:
That’s why I call her the Birther Trophy Wife, anyone trying to show sympathy for her…well….I don’t think so.
rikyrah
@Raoul:
A grifting con man as ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES.
UH HUH
UH HUH
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Consider if you will what happened when Bill Clinton saw Lynch on the tarmac. Geez trump has been recruiting this guy through Steve King. They are such hypocrites.
rikyrah
@Kay:
TELL IT, KAY
TELL IT!
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Schiff is a former prosecutor. His barely contained rage has been palpable if you’ve watched him over the past 2 years.
He is SOO not playing.
JPL
Robin Roberts mentioned on GMA that the politics is a small part of the book. The book reveals her miscarriage and the fact that they went to marriage counseling. I assume trump will criticize the former President Obama for submitting to marriage counseling and calling him weak.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: I’m hoping it blows up in his face. Whitaker was all over TV like some wingnut chatbot regurgitating Trump talking points: Mueller has gone too far! Better not look into Trump’s finances! Anyone would have taken the Trump Tower meeting! Blah blah blah. And Trump made THAT guy acting AG, bypassing people who have been confirmed by the Senate? Gee, I wonder why?
JPL
@Kay: I don’t really care do you
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Assumes facts not in evidence. Their existing descendants are quite proud of it.
mad citizen
My current favorite wikipedia page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes#Executive_branch_8
Of course, these are just the reported items. I read “I Heard You Paint Houses”, the mobster Frank Sheeran’s Zelig-like account of his life–this is the new/last Scorcese mob movie coming to netflix about the Jimmy Hoffa murder. Sheeran claims at one point he delivered a briefcase full of cash to John Mitchell in DC, and it turned out that anti-Hoffa supporters had also delivered to cash to Mitchell. I love it when criminals are running the Executive Branch.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Speaking as a man? No, just no.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh come on! Compared to her toad-faced husband?
M31
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
and not ONLY toad-faced, according to Stormy :-)
OzarkHillbilly
@mad citizen: “I Heard You Paint Houses” is a great book.
japa21
@OzarkHillbilly: I think Dorothy meant she is prettier than her husband, not prettier than Michelle. If she meant the latter, than, although I like Dorothy and have met her, she is crazy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A toad is more attractive than her toad faced husband.
thalarctosMaritimus
@OzarkHillbilly: prettier than her husband, I believe.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @japa21: Got it, my apologies to Dorothy.
psycholinguist
@OzarkHillbilly: Jeff sessions firing is a sign. the lowly bulldogs of Mississippi State take down the evil empire of nick saban and alabama football this weekend.
Karen S.
@Kay:
She sure is. There was this bizarre, to me anyway, “Free Melania” thing going on on social media, as if she were somehow trapped in a marriage to Drumpf. Nope. She chose him. She chose to be there. She chose to endorse that pernicious and racist birther absurdity. No sympathy for her all. She’s one of these terrible white women who votes for their own subjugation because it reinforces white (male) supremacy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh yeah. Compared to Michelle, you’re so right. Michelle is real and warm. Her graciousness and intelligence affect her appearance. Melania…well, plastic and pouty. But still, better than The Toad.
Aleta
@Mary G:
Nor has he or Mel ever denounced the racist attacks on Michelle by rw hate media. (They divert the media with their ‘we must punish a reporter who laid a hand on a woman (a lie) ‘ and denounce unchivalrous words about SSanders; while Lewandowski works for them on CNN and they endorse their own hate media attacks on MO, HRC, Maxine Waters, Pelosi, …. And he continues the hate chants at rallies. A reporter needs to confront him on those chants.
japa21
Penzeys latest email.
Aleta
@Raoul: Whitaker even criticized Roberts for not just ‘calling balls and strikes’ in the same 2014 interview that quote was from. Iow for being activist (liberal) I guess.
schrodingers_cat
Michelle channels how I feel when I see or hear T. A wave of revulsion and anger washes over me. And then I feel an immense sadness, that there are enough people in the country I chose as my home, who voted for this bigot and made him the President. A man without one single redeeming quality. A man who is totally unqualified and inept, on the basis of his naked xenophobia and racism. They decided to give him immense power to put people like me in their place. It feels personal, in a way W’s election never did.
And my ex-friend’s vote for Jill Stein just brought home the fact how little our friendship meant to her. I thought that Barrack Obama’s election and the subsequent freakout gave me a taste of the extent of racism in America, boy was that underestimation.
Amir Khalid
@japa21:
I think what Dorothy really means is that Melania is less ugly than her husband.
japa21
@Amir Khalid: And that only barely.
Betty Cracker
Reporters asked Trump directly about Michelle Obama’s criticism, and he chickened out and attacked President Obama instead:
LOL! What a fucking coward.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid: I don’t know about that, she is ugly in her own way, with those slanted eyes and a mean mouth. Yeah but she is skinny and tall and looks good in clothes unlike the fat blob she is married to.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker: I caught some of this. Seemed crazier than usual. Plus, “I don’t know Matt Whitaker” and “Robert Mueller wasn’t Senate confirmed” were particularly nice touches.
grandpa john
@psycholinguist: As a Clemson grad and fan, I hope you are right
Kay
Hah!
Kay
Here’s what Donald and Melania Trump believe: that Obama was lying about his birthplace and compounded that lie by submitting a FAKE birth certificate.
They believed a sitting US Senator and Presidential candidate did this. Produced a counterfeit birth certificate and a whole fake birth story.
No one on the Right has accused anyone of this insane crime since that one time with Obama. Just the black President. Never mentioned birth records again. It is 100% about them believing black people, their very existence, are illegitimate. I mean, this wasn’t subtle- they questioned the basic facts of his life. Remember when they gave him a completely different father?
rikyrah
@japa21:
That was beautiful.
The American Experiment continues.
rikyrah
@Kay:
no lie told
The Lodger
@rikyrah: Ed Meese. John Mitchell. Alberto Gonzales. Jeff Sessions.
There’s ample precedent.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
NPR interviewed one of his colleagues this morning who assured listeners that because he played Iowa football, he would be eminently fair. Give me a fucking break.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
See, you’re a racist if you attack a black woman, but if you attack a black man, you’re a true blue American.
geg6
@mad citizen:
It is an old BJ joke. You can find it in the Lexicon, which is up top in Quick Links. To save you the time and effort, here’s the “Green Balloon Juice” entry:
Now it’s our bat signal.
Shakti
@Snarki, child of Loki: That would imply that Trump could write or it’s plausible he could write.
Tony Schwartz has a lot to answer for.
Dreams from My Father, otoh, is a wonderful autobiography from a politician.
Trump is a malevolent algae overgrown puddle.
mad citizen
I don’t want to play the trumpov fox clip, but based on the text, OMG what a transparent BS artist–all he will ever be.
mad citizen
@geg6: Thank you for the explanation of Green Baloons!!!
My safe word is “impeachment”
Catatonia
@MazeDancer:
I wouldn’t mind calling her President-elect in 2020, but I know she’s not interested
amygdala
@schrodingers_cat:
Wow… you really said that, didn’t you?
schrodingers_cat
@amygdala: She is not Asian or look Asian. Her eyes don’t look natural, like cosmetic surgery gone wrong, was what I was trying to say. Also, I didn’t realize the subtext till you pointed it out. I am sorry. My bad.
Ohio Mom
@schrodingers_cat: I think of Melania’s plastic eye surgery as aiming toward cat eyes.
But now I have insulted all the pet owners.
She reminds me of a Barbie Doll, in the body-shape she has consciously acquired, in her taste in clothing, in her taste in shoes (I halfway expect her bare feet to be bent like Barbie’s), and in her stiff, unnatural carriage.
She is as cold in personality as a plastic doll; people project glamour on to her like little girls project whatever they do on their Barbies.
The main difference between Barbie and Melania: Barbies tend to end up naked, in a pile, when their owners have out grown them (at that point, the shoes have all been lost and the clothing has disintegrated); Melania of course started out naked, and had her instance of being piled up with other naked women documented in an infamous photoshoot.
Wasn’t that mean and uncalled for?
Heh.