From NYMag, “The Obamas’ Law Professor Thinks Michelle Should’ve Been President“:
This election cycle, Michelle Obama proved she could give a speech as well as — and maybe even better than — her husband. But according to her law professor, Michelle’s skills rivaled Barack’s in other areas, too. TMZ caught up with Charles Ogletree Jr., a constitutional law professor at Harvard who taught both the Obamas when they attended the university. And according to him, Michelle was the better student — and would’ve been the better president…
So … Michelle 2020? Not quite. “She could easily be president, but I don’t think she will,” Ogletree said. Judging by the number of times the Obamas have said exactly the same thing, that’s a pretty safe bet.
Video at the link. That’s the thing about becoming President — you have to want it, above all else, and it would seem that’s not how Michelle Obama rolls. Who could blame her?
In that vein, former MObama staffer Sara Hurwitz had a piece in Politico:
The most valuable lesson I learned about speechwriting from my former boss, first lady Michelle Obama, is this: Say something true.
The first, most foundational question any speaker should ask is not, “What will make me sound smart, or witty, or powerful?” or “What does the audience want to hear?”
It is: “What is the deepest, most important truth I can tell at this particular moment?” From her frank comments on race and gender over the years, to her remarks on the campaign trail last fall, every speech Michelle Obama gave was her answer to that question—and audiences appreciated it. Amid the bland, calculated language that has become the dialect of modern politics (“We need to support hardworking middle-class American family values!”), genuine words stand out and have a special kind of power to move and inspire…
Members of Donald Trump’s party saw that he lied with impunity, lashed out at the smallest provocation and took pleasure in demeaning and humiliating others. They acknowledged that certain statements he made were racist and misogynistic. And they clearly suspected that he was dangerously unfit for the presidency. Yet rather than voicing what they felt in their gut to be true about him, they chose to verbalize it away, helping legitimize his candidacy for the most powerful job on Earth.
Perhaps they thought he could not win. Perhaps they thought he could not do that much damage if he did. Both of these assumptions have now been proven wrong. Yet, many of these individuals still seem to be talking themselves out of telling the truth about who Trump is and how he behaves…
Calming Influence
I love Michelle. But we have 300,000,000 people in this country. Not all of them are named Clinton, Bush, or Obama.
Raoul
I hope to g-d we can stop with the family dynasty politics. I mean, I adore Michelle. And she is brilliant and I hope she does really amazing things with her life.
But in addition to a two-term limit for the presidency should at the very least be a rock-solid norm (I know, we don’t have those any more, but even the no-norms fad may pass) that the wife/partner/brother/etc of a president is just sort of ignored out of hand in all future presidential elections.
Dubya was a disaster.
Jeb. was a joke candidate from the start.
Cuomo jr? Shitty governor. (So I’d say similar for state executives)
Hillary was, from what I surmise at a distance, a decent NY senator. And I can say as I followed more closely, a pretty darn good SOS. Did she really need to run for prez? (I supporter her candidacy, certainly over Bernie, but longed for other choices….)
Michele should kick some ass in an unrelated sector. PBO would make an excellent SCOTUS member after maybe going back to teach some sort of law/history hybrid class for a decade. (He can also do whatever he damn well chooses, who the heck am I to even suggest!…)
But really, no dynastic bullshit in the US of A. Really.
Calming Influence
And Anne Laurie, do you ever sleep?
Anne Laurie
@Calming Influence: Yes, during business hours (usually from 6am-2pm). That’s the schedule my body clock prefers, and it lets me handle the pre-dawn shift here.
Calming Influence
@Raoul: I see we posted roughly the same sentiment within moments of each other. Great minds, &c… :)
Raoul
@Calming Influence: You were refreshingly concise, me not quite so.
Mnemosyne
@Raoul:
Family dynasty politics goes all the way back to our 6th president. Would we have been better off without FDR as president because his (distant) cousin Teddy was president first?
IMO, it’s a bogus complaint that some people used as an excuse not to vote for a woman.
Raoul
OK, one random tidbit before I go to sleep (up much too late!)
Ome reporter on the Twit-box said the admin was deciding on Flynn resignation for three days (!). It seems to me that in the past three days, I saw at least two major news outlet stories that either/both Spicer and Priebus were on the ropes.
I see this now as inoculation. While neither is a paragon of virtue, I can imagine as the WH was heating up in top level discussions of resign or not, that both Spicer and Priebus at least considered resigning if Flynn didn’t get the axe.
Since a principled stand from either of those men would run counter to any narrative Bannon would want, I think he planted the rumors of our Republican president’s dissatisfaction, so that a quit over a serious issue could be spun as a firing for not working out.
Maybe overthinking it. Did I mention I’m past due for seepy time? Going now…
G’night all you overnight nuts!!
Raoul
@Mnemosyne: Quick answer: Distant cousin is not the same at all as wife-husband, son-daughter, or brother-sister.
May be splitting hairs vis Roosevelts, but there it is.
I agree that it could be misogyny against Clinton for some of us, I hope not me but my shadow side isn’t always even that obv to me. But I am damn clear that the Bush family not get anywhere near a presidency for decades … if ever. There’s a grandson out there causing problems, isn’t there? No f’ing way, dammit.
OK, really. To bed I go!!!
Time Travelin'
@Calming Influence: Some are named Trump. Too many, in fact.
Calming Influence
@Anne Laurie: Heh! I worked mid shifts for a number of years and really enjoyed it. Off at 6am, dinner a 7am, in bed by 8:30 or 9am. The weird thing was sometimes waking up in the dark and being completely disoriented as to what time of day it was…
? Martin
@Raoul:
Alternative explanation: Trump is willing to throw everyone under the bus to avoid accusations of incompetence.
Most likely explanation: everyone’s got a knife to everyone else’s throat. It’s Lord of the Flies in there.
Mnemosyne
@Raoul:
FDR and Teddy may be the most recent and successful examples, but they are by no means the only ones. And a “dynasty” is having multiple generations in office, which is why the Bushes and Kennedys are dynasties and the Clintons are not.
I still think that people who hated the idea of a woman president latched onto the idea of a “dynasty” being bad, and then pointed to the Bushes to reinforce their existing prejudice, rather than there being something inherently bad about two spouses both being politicians.
Calming Influence
@Mnemosyne:
I made the same argument against dynasties in 2000, and George wasn’t a woman then.
jl
Michelle Obama would be a very good president. First problem, which seems to be a big one, is that from what I have heard and read from her quarters, she is not thrilled about running for political office in general, and would rather slowly saw off three of her limbs with a rusty farm implement than run for president, or be president, or even get near the damn WH, if she won somehow.
Probably be the first presidential candidate to win while in hiding
But other than that, I guess, sure, it could happen.
Calming Influence
An Elizabeth Warren, or any of a number of extremely qualified female politicians could have smoked Trump if it hadn’t been “Hillary’s turn”. She didn’t even have a primary challenger til Bernie stepped in. That’s not the way to pick the best candidate.
Mnemosyne
@Calming Influence:
George W Bush and George HW Bush were married to each other? Man, I’ve gotta keep up on the news better.
And I started hearing the “dynasty” complaints about Hillary the instant she moved to New York to start running for Senator, so it actually (slightly) pre-dates the Giant Bush Fail.
I’m assuming that your wife and children are all forbidden from going into the same field of work as you so you don’t end up accidentally founding a dynasty, right?
? Martin
@Calming Influence: Warren didn’t want to run. I think she’s changed her mind after Trump’s victory.
I would be happy with Warren but would prefer someone from a younger generation, with a somewhat different viewpoint on the world. Both Trump and Clinton seemed seriously disconnected from the world that young voters live in. Clinton did an admirable job trying to bridge that gap, but it was clear that she didn’t quite live in that world. Obama more naturally succeeded at that, and Michelle even more than Barack.
I’m not worried about health or anything like that, but the world in 2028, at the end of the next 2 term presidency, will be largely unrecognizable to us. There are massive, massive changes coming and we really need someone who can meet them head on, understand their implications before society freaks the fuck out over them, and usher us through. That’s a big part of why states like California are so unrecognizable to folks in Indiana and v/v. It’s almost as if they’re a generation behind us. That’s going to get worse.
Mnemosyne
@Calming Influence:
Uh-huh. Misogyny doesn’t exist, so the only problem is that we didn’t run the right woman.
There is none so blind as those who refuse to see, I guess. But I do love how the bogus “she didn’t have a real primary challenger!” still comes up about the woman who got 2.8 million more votes than the electoral college winner.
? Martin
So the next calculus is for the Senate/WH. They now have the Oprah episode with Pudzer’s wife. Do they confirm him, knowing the tape will become widely distributed eventually, and the public may turn against them, or do they sink his confirmation and take the hit of a failed confirmation? I suppose it’s also possible they’re stupid enough to think that an episode of Oprah, that Oprah gave to the Senate won’t get public. After all, this whole Flynn thing happened, and it’s a 9 layer dip of stupid.
After Flynn, another failure will get headlines of a White House spinning out of control. I think they’re screwed either way.
amk
jesus fucking christ. ‘dynasty politics’ argument over a capable and strong woman, who has stated multiple times she is not interested? what a load of self righteous bs.
? Martin
And another thing that I don’t think Adam mentioned regarding the mar a lago incident. Remember when people were using their smartphone flashlight apps to help the two leaders read information regarding the North Korean launch? There was at least one flashlight app in the wild that had malware installed that would activate your microphone and send audio to China.
Even if those devices had been checked prior to the event by the US Government, when the need for a flashlight popped up, it would have been trivial for someone to download it in a few seconds, not realizing it was spyware.
EBT
@? Martin: Yet another reason I am happy my phone OS has a built in flashlight control.
? Martin
And here’s another potential scandal looming:
I think a certain Democratic candidate was accused repeatedly of violating the Federal Records Act with her email server. Pretty sure Confide is designed to specifically prevent complying with that Act.
? Martin
@EBT: And the ability to centrally disable and revoke malicious apps.
Amir Khalid
@Raoul:
There’s no chance of a Barack-to-MIchelle Obama “dynasty”, so I wouldn’t waste time fretting about it. As for the claim that one of the most qualified and thoroughly prepared candidates in the history of your Republic was running for President out of mere entitlement, I’ve always found it unconvincing and vaguely insulting to Hillary. Yes, she fell short in the end; but 2016 was one of your freakiest presidential elections ever, and people are still trying to figure it out.
Remember that John Quincy Adams and FDR didn’t directly succeed their relatives as president, and Hillary wouldn’t have either. I don’t consider husband-to-wife a dynasty yet. Now if it were parent-to-child, or even better parent-to-child-to-grandchild …
Calming Influence
Alright , Jesus, I love Hillary, I voted for Hillary, but I was politically active in the Bill administration and Hil got fucking tarred. Not her fault. All bullshit. Fake, ridiculous, unfair crap. She’s an amazing woman. But because of this, through no fault of her own, she started out in fucking 2008 as a damaged candidate. Clinton derangement syndrome. Ever hear of it?
So paint me as a woman hater because I don’t think it was smart of the Democratic party to assume Hillary would be a shoe-in. Yes, Warren didn’t want to run, and she shouldn’t have. But an outside woman candidate without 30 years of unfair baggage, like a Warren, might have been a smarter choice. I was trying to point out that the Democratic party doesn’t, and shouldn’t, consist of Hillary Clinton and a bunch of white guys. Again, 300,000,000. Anyone can grow up to be president.
Amir Khalid
@Calming Influence:
Who is this “outside woman candidate without 30 years of unfair baggage” that you speak of? No one. She didn’t exist in 2016.
Look at the four other candidates who did put themselves up last year: Was any one of them a stronger candidate than Hillary? No. That’s why none of them could beat her in the primary, not even Sanders who lost to her earlier on in the primary season than he cares to admit.
NotMax
@Raoul
*ahem*
Jerry Brown.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Jerry didn’t directly follow Pat, there was this actor guy. What ever happened to him?
Calming Influence
@Amir Khalid: Hillary was absolutely a uniquely qualified candidate for president. A good, knowledgeable, honest, and trustworthy person. Spouse of a president, Senator, Sec. of State. I so wish she was in the White House right now.
Hillary won. Trump is a freak of the system. I don’t think Hillary’s candidacy is responsible for Trump. I just think that in the future, unfair as the baggage may be, we run candidates with a minimum of baggage, male or female.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Mentioned to you because of their first name.
Hamilton Fish – governor of NY
Hamilton Fish II, III, IV – all Congressmen
Now that’s a dynasty.
(Hamilton Fish V ran for Congress and lost.)
Calming Influence
@Amir Khalid: Alright, Amir, you win. Hillary Clinton was the only plausible Democratic candidate for 2016.
Hope she runs in 2020.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
And Chris didn’t directly follow Cuomo pere. Just responding in kind to one of Raoul’s examples.
raven
Good to see that schmuck go!
CarolDuhart2
@Calming Influence: Really? Where were they, and why didn’t they run if they were so good? This argument is an easy way to dismiss the Russian hacking as just her. Russians were out to get their client in-he owes them money, and the Republican side was pretty hapless otherwise.
About dynasties…nothing wrong with them. Would we have been better off without Bobby and Jack? Should we have a brilliant person be a child of a former President be denied his/her chance because of that?
raven
@CarolDuhart2: The Jack who gave us the war in Vietnam?
CarolDuhart2
The only baggage HIllary had was that she was a uppity woman who back in 1974 dared to be a feminist who ran for office. They associated her with everything they hated about assertive women who didn’t kiss ass. They hated her ambition, her advocacy for women, everything. They hated the fact she’s self-contained and reserved. They hated her because they associated her with those hippie women who told their women they didn’t have to submit to beating, lack of health care, useless fashions, and abusive social conditions.
CarolDuhart2
@raven: Also the Jack that gave us an opening for civil rights, who made the tech boom possible with the race to the Moon, who left us the Peace Corps and a legacy of inspiring quotes. That Jack. And would anyone else have not done the same back then? The fear of Communism taking over was very real (even if not realistically evaluated) and anyone who won the office would have not backed down in Southeast Asia.
rikyrah
Michelle doesn’t want it. And, that is fine.
She has served this country well.
CarolDuhart2
@? Martin: And even without that particular app, cellphones are dangerous. Where I work, we are forbidden to take pictures without permission, and I suspect recording of audio is also not really allowed. We only have them because they are phones, and people also listen to their music and get texts. And nothing we have is even remotely as sensitive as what’s at Mar-A-Lago.
Schlemazel
Many of you won’t believe it but this is too cynical for me. The problem is it fits so well in our current situation I just have to quote Hitchhikers
Baud
No more dynasties. It’s Baud!’s turn.
raven
@CarolDuhart2: “And would anyone else have not done the same back then?”
Yep, that makes it just peachy.
CarolDuhart2
@raven: It doesn’t make it peachy, but inevitable.
raven
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot, Camelot
That’s how conditions are.
The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
Camelot! Camelot!
CarolDuhart2
I was a kid (grade school) during Camelot. I have fonder memories than you do of an era, that was changing and getting a bit better for people like me who had been suppressed a lot. Kennedy sided with King in his last year, opening up a political spot for the Civil Rights Acts. In some cases, because of his example, things began to integrate even before 1964. And it didn’t hurt to have a little culture in the White House.
No one who could have reversed course on Vietnam would have made it to the point it would have been able to. Perhaps a second-term Kennedy might have pulled some troops out, but unless the “domino theory” was thoroughly discredited among his advisors, there still would have been a presence.
amk
@raven: nixon would have been so impeachy.. oh, wait.
Schlemazel
@CarolDuhart2:
The funny thing is JFK was not a big fan of the Civil Rights Act (Eleanor Roosevelt walked out of the 60 convention in protest of his nomination because he was so weak on civil rights) It was LBJ that was the driver behind that bill. He used Kennedy’s dead body to drag it across the finish line against the wishes of the Dixiecrats.
raven
@CarolDuhart2: That’s right, you do.
raven
Mel
@? Martin:
I hear you, and in part, I agree. But I believe that one major (often ignored) part of the issue we are facing is less that of a “generation gap” (wherein the perception is that the older generation doesn’t fully comprehend the issues and challenges faced by the younger generation, and the younger generation doesn’t understand the older generation’s perceived desire to cilng to “”outdated” or “non- disruptive” methods), and more of a failure of both groups to see that our goals and our challenges are much more similar than they are different.
Job insecurity fears are a concern for people in their twenties and early thirties who are starting their careers; the unpredictability of the temping and subcontracting models, wildly fluctuant reimbursement scales from job to job and area to area, and crushing student loan debt make it often incredibly hard for younger people to get a solid financial foothold from which to start planning and moving forward with the personal and professional areas of their lives. How the hell can you obtain a safe, secure living space, save to start your own business or contemplate a move to further your career opportunities, or contemplate starting a family if you want to, when your life is check to check, week to week?However, these issues are also a concern for people in their forties, fifties, and sixties, who are increasingly being downsized out of (often) lifelong careers, and then have trouble finding any stable comparable work despite often having stellar resumes and work expetience, and being current with regards to relevant training, skills or tech in their fields, etc. They face the reality of mortgage debt, concerns about helping their kids get a good education and a good start in life, and how to be able to retire with some modicum of safety and dignity.
I do understand that you are not concerned about health right now, and I am thankful beyond words if that means that you are healthy and happy. I hope with all my heart that you never, ever have any major health issues. But please understand that, sadly, for many people both younger and older, health challenges do occur. It is so difficult to understand why affordable access is an issue that stirs such passion, anger, grief, and fear until you or someone you love has walked the terrible path of illness. Too often, I think, healthcare access is spun or perceived as an issue for older people. Please believe me when I tell you it is an issue of vital importance for everyone , of every age. I know this personally. Without getting into too much painful and personal detail, suffice it to say that within the span of one week, I went from a perfectly healthy 20something who was a runner, a cyclist, a healthy eater and non-smoker who had maybe ten glasses of wine a year, a person with 2 degrees who was working towards a third degree, co-authoring a text book, and working two part-time university jobs in the fields of education and social services, to a person whose health, life, and future became consumed by a really horiffic and completely unexpected illness. I was the last person in the world who ever thought that something like that could happen to them, and probably the last person that anyone who knew me expected to become ill. I grew up in a rural community where money was scarce for most, and I was taught that you got ahead in life by working as hard as possible, sacrificing to reach your goals, getting the best possible education, and by trying every day to be useful and helpful to those around you, especially those who are struggling.
But when catastrophic illness or injury hits, often out of the blue, no amount of past effort, good intention, or sheer force of will can change the fact that it rips apart the fabric of one’s life, sometimes irreparably. What did it cost me? My career, my health, any chance of starting the family that my spouse and I so longed for, my dignity, my hopes for the future, so many friendships (it’s easy to “be there” when a friend has an illness or surgery with a finite recovery period; it is often terribly difficult for people to keep “being there” when an illness drags on with an uncertain prognosis and causes so many physical, social, and ability changes in the person who is ill), and the small financial safety net that I had carefully saved starting at age fifteen. Suddenly, I understood my grandparents’ statements about medicare and social security being “life saving” and “world changing” for people. Suddenly, my friends and close coworkers realized that nobody is invincible, and that health is a precious, precarious commodity thst can be ripped from your grasp without a moment’s notice, no matter your age, profession, gender, health habits, etc. Suddenly, it was very, very clear just how human, how vulnerable, how very much the same we all are.
Sorry for rambling a bit, but my point is this. Maybe the answer is as simple (and as challenging) as finding the common ground, and understanding that it isn’t the age of the politician, or the age of the voter base that will determine if we can work together. It is seeing the issues through common eyes. Jobs that pay a real wage and offer security (whether that comes from long term employment, guaranteed portable benefits and wage and labor standards and etc with the moveable economy, or more likely both); access to affordable education, and stability for a decent stsndard of living while getting thst education ( having worked 60 plus hours a week to keep the lights on and meet the exorbitant tuition, transportation, and supplies fees while going to school fulltime throughout two of my degrees, and seeing the struggles that many of my students had to battle through every week, I can say with certainty – educational access is a vital issue whether the student is 18 or 58); affordable, quality healthcare access both for those who need it now and for those who don’t, but might at any time in the near or distant future; equal rights and freedom from discrimination whether that discrimination is racially based, gender or orientation based, age based, health or disability based –
These are just a few of so many key issues that we risk losing (much less gaining) ground on, and they are issues that are essential to ALL of us. If we can start seeing our common ground, we not only create a larger, stronger, more integrated party, but we lessen the quibbling and nitpicking and divisive rhetoric that weakens voter turnout. Let’s keep our eyes on the big stuff. Let’s support candidates based upon their commitment to the big issues and their willingness to not only talk the talk, but also to take clear, definitive action to chalenge and oppose bad legislation not just verbally but with their votes, and to put forth sound, achievable progressive plans and legislation.
satby
@Mel: Beautifully said. And I hope things are better now for you.
CarolDuhart2
@Schlemazel: While he wasn’t a big fan, at least he didn’t try to suppress it either and received MLK in the White House. And the FBI and other Federal law enforcement groups started going after the Klan as well.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
Shit, I’m nearly 40 and haven’t started a career yet, and at this point, I really doubt that I ever will. Who in their right mind would hire me? This idea that only millenials have it hard in the job market is silly. If you were a poor kid, no matter your generation, your prospects weren’t, and aren’t, good. Baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millenials need to realize it’s a CLASS thing, not an age thing.
Saurs
@Raoul (and others): “dynasty” is starting to resemble the “coronation” dogwhistle, where the ambitions (in one case, hypothetical) of two highly qualified and otherwise accomplished women (were they men, infinitely equal if not more suitable to high office than their husbands) are characterized as especially nefarious and undemocratic. “My Turn,” says dead-eyed femme fatale with a gun at your head, because female politicians are constantly swept up onto pedestals in this country, queens for life and answerable to no one. Sons follow in their father’s footsteps with nary a peep of this double-standard bullshit, but the second a woman’s involved there’s this camp clutching-of-pearls about the elitism of powerful families. Fairly ironic, given that the Clintons were treated like parvenu yokels, Capitol Hillbillies, when he was POTUS and the Obamas like usurping animals.
Debbie1
@Calming Influence: Don’t worry and calm down. She’s NOT interested. They’re NOT interested. It was just someone she knew speculating. The bad lady isn’t going to harm you anymore. Sheesh!
Iowa Old Lady
@Calming Influence: I think we should have sent a team other than the Falcons to the Super Bowl. I mean, I know they won the playoffs, but I hope we’ve learned our lesson.
Mnemosyne
@Calming Influence:
Of course, this is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT argument than the one you started off making.
If you keep coming up with different reasons why a former Senator and former Secretary of State shouldn’t have run for president, that means you aren’t talking about your subconscious reason for thinking that that’s probably underlying the whole argument. And since both conscious and unconscious misogyny bit us in the ass this time, I’m not willing to sit back and watch it happen again with the next woman candidate. Let’s get this noxious shit out in the open now.