Sunday, January 22, 2012

Get out of here! And take your little dog with you.

Heavens, it’s nearly impossible to keep a good, sordid story under wraps in this new media age.

I’m not talking about Marianne Gingrich dishing on Newt’s swinging days, nor Newt’s dishing on Mitt’s tax returns (Which, I understand, when finally released will reveal that he paid all his taxes, on time. Which begs the question: is America ready for a President so straight he doesn’t even cheat on his taxes?).

No, what I’m talking about is Ms. Jodi Kantor’s ongoing ode to all things Obama. I know - it almost seems like a regular installment now. Butt Jodi’s book, originally written as an in-kind gift to Campaign Obama 2012, seems to have been woefully misinterpreted – most notably by Lady M herself. I guess Ms. Jodi, in her zeal to make MO appear like a real person inadvertently sandwiched a bit too much truth between the fatuous layers of awesomeness that make up the Wons.

So lets not fret over the Republican primaries when we can be entertained by a few more fun facts from the little Obama book of HOPE. This time, compliments of the ever vigilant Daily Mail: seeking out the most salacious gossip from around the world so you don’t have to.  Let the sniping begin:

Most political wives would give their right arm to be chatelaine of America’s most famous building. But Michelle was far from enamoured with the prospect of moving to the White House.

extreme makeover big white moIt’s okay, butt it needs a little makeover

white house tarpBig White, under wraps for renovations

Her decision to hire trendy designer Michael Smith — who had decorated houses for Steven Spielberg and Rupert Murdoch — to refurbish the White House caused tension.

postracialpets4Michael Smith with his post-racial “family” – he was a natural for the job of redecorating the Big White

In fact, she was considering living in Chicago with their daughters Sasha and Malia for six months, commuting to Washington for occasional official duties.

The new leader of the free world was aghast. The woman he had lauded in his speech for her ‘unyielding support’ and described as ‘my best friend for the past 16 years, the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation’s next First Lady’ did not see the need to be at his side in the White House.

cm_obama_01_17_12_0761

Big Guy unexpectedly runs into his best friend returning to the West Wing on her birthday last week and Time photographer captures the warm, touching (almost) moment.

As they say: if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. I don’t think I better say any more.

little bo

 

Although not wanting to move into the Big White with Big Guy shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, we’d already established that he was stinky and snorey; not to mention hopey, changey – and sometimes kind of dopey too.

But those who had known the couple through occasionally rocky times and constant friction over the demands of his political career found this latest conflict…easier to understand.

Its revelations about tensions in the Obama marriage — and how they reverberated through the White House — have gripped America, even more so after Michelle went on a CBS talk show this week to claim the book was just the latest attempt to portray her as ‘some angry black woman’.

When in fact we all know that MO is really just a very schtrong woman.

tumblr_lpk9h5Etbh1ql9sajo1_500Bring it, sucka!

It was Michelle who had decided the family would join the church of the notorious pastor Jermiah Wright, who has been described as having anti-American and anti-white views.

bo mo at trinity church1Obama family at the Reverend Wright’s Trinity Church, back when he was still considered a political asset: Rev. Wright that is

Here are some of the lesser-known quotes from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I guess I can see why some people would describe him as having “anti-American” views. Butt remember, Big Guy didn’t really listen while he was sitting in the pews anyway. A habit that he later brought to Washington with him.

Oh, and here’s a little seen photo of a lower profile member of The Rev’s church: also working on the Won’s campaign.

ayers-wright2The Rev greets church member Bill Ayers at the Won’s rally. (Note: apparently membership at Trinity does not require belief in God. It’s more of a political thing.)

Still, both Big Guy and Lady M were surprised by this:

She was also depicted as a Sixties black radical clad in Army fatigues and with an Afro and AK-47 — though the image was on the cover of the liberal New Yorker magazine and was intended to be ironic.

the-new-yorker-muslim-obama-cover-big

The only ironic part was that it was intended to be ironic.

Speaking on the stump during the election campaign, she sounded like a firebrand in comparison with her detached technocrat husband.

         Obama's planetmichelles-face-5-12-2010 

Good cop, bad cop. It’s their thing.

 

But to some observers this week, her protestations rang hollow. Some felt that she was playing the race card to stifle criticism.

mo racecard

During the presidential campaign, staff had nicknamed her ‘the Taskmaster’ and been in constant fear of what one adviser termed ‘the wrath of Michelle’. 

Obama 2008 Democratic Convention

That’s not where I told you to put it Buh-rock! I want that building relocated to the other side of the street. By tomorrow. Got that David?

Though she had thrown herself into the campaign, she had been sceptical from the outset about the very notion of her husband running for president.

Michelle_Obama_LaughsBuh-rock President!? Stinky, snorey, dopey Buh-rock!? That’s a good one!

Butt Big Guy has always had aspirations. Some called them illusions of grandeur.

Barack Obama had been constantly dissatisfied with where he was in life.

Well, who wouldn’t be, when you’ve always know that you’re the Won?

Obaama-sheep--46604“I have a gift, Harry. I can get the sheep to follow me anywhere.”

When he was elected to the state senate in Illinois, he immediately began complaining that the body was not serious and referred to his colleagues as idiots.

And I guess he would be in a position to know an idiot if he spotted one.

bo menucruisingSeriously. It’s a mirror.

As soon as he entered the U.S. Senate, he felt frustrated.

At his first hearing on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he sat listening to a long-winded address by Senator Joe Biden — later to become his vice-president — and passed a note to an aide that said: ‘Shoot. Me. Now.’

joey

The same sentiment expressed later by a lot of ordinary Americans. And no longer just about Joey.

Brushing aside advice to bide his time, Mr Obama immediately decided he wanted to run for President. The main obstacle in his way was his wife.

Hee hee. Those big butt jokes never seem to get old do they?

michelle-obama-butt-290x290

She had hated him campaigning for the Senate, startling his staff by phoning him up on the campaign trail to remind him to bring home eggs and milk.

Though she came from a humble background, Mrs Obama was a lawyer educated at Princeton and Harvard. [ed. in case you forgot]

A former editor of the Chicago Tribune who had met the Obamas years earlier recalled: ‘If someone had said to me ‘‘One of them is going to grow up to be president,” I may have bet on her.’

Hillary Clinton Michelle Obama Announce Int RMRwVAXz67SlOf course, she wasn’t the first FLOTUS that was said of.

Michelle was uncomfortable with the role of politician’s wife, the silent, smiling appendage, and felt her husband’s ambitions were selfish. [ed. something else she has in common with Hil]

‘What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but “me” is first,’ she told a reporter in 2004.

‘And for women, “me” is fourth and that’s not healthy.’

I’m not sure that view of men IS healthy. It sort of makes Lady M sound -  well, you know – like “an angry black woman.”

wCVWawtpoXX0dVqdbMKa8Q

After Mr Obama shot to international attention with a scintillating speech at the Democratic National Convention that summer, she had made a point of telling people that he was a man, not a prophet, and he hadn’t yet achieved much.

Well by God, somebody did notice! Even if it was only MO. And her saying so out loud does, again, make her seem like…”an angry black woman.” Who may just have an issue or two with her husband always puttin himself first.

 

framed world readership-CENTAU copy_thumb[2]

Our overpraised President receives his first international award – for NOTHING! He does have a gift.

 

Abandoned by his father and sent by his mother to live with his grandparents in Hawaii for his schooling, Mr Obama had little sense of what ordinary family life was like.

Michelle had to teach him basic things, such as phoning home every day from a trip.

obama-phone1…as well as how to use the phone

Her coolly intellectual husband didn’t see much point in calling if he didn’t have anything to say.

listen to bo

Nothing to say? Like, uh, uh, when did that happen?

 

When he baulked at posing for pictures with strangers, she would tell him ‘Do your job’, with the subtext: ‘This is what you wanted.’

obama-hanging-curtainsFinish your homework. You can eat your damn waffle when you’re done.

As Miss Kantor’s bombshell book reveals, once there (the White House) she was far from happy. Clothing had long been her ‘compensatory pleasure’ for dutifully enduring the demands of her husband’s political career.

And so began Lady M’s long commitment to sacrificin’ for her country.

‘If I have to go, I’m getting a new dress out of it,’ she would tell neighbours before flying to Washington when he was a senator.

When she became First Lady, White House advisers cringed when she wore a $515 pair of trainers by French designer Lanvin during a trip to a food kitchen for the poor. 

michelles-540-sneakers

What? Did you expect her to wear - a pair of ugly ass Bruno Mali’s?

They were furious when she broke the White House rule of no foreign holidays and went on a four-day trip to Spain.

 

             DV811752b4and after

They forgot: we came here to CHANGE the rules.

There was almost another rift when Michelle decided she wanted to appear on the cover of Vogue. During a biting recession, there were fears she was projecting a Marie Antoinette image.

Fears!?!

Her reluctance to attend charity lunches and political events became a standing joke. An adviser noted airily that ‘this is not a First Lady who just does lunch’.

You can say that again. No sir! Lady M does breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks!

shakeshack2The official Lady M Shake Shack Snack Pack

For her part, Michelle resented her husband’s aides. Her objections to them, Miss Kantor writes, ‘tended to sound a lot like her personal complaints about her husband over the years’.

There’s a word for that, what is it again? Oh yes, “transference,” poor babies.

Charges of ‘not planning, not keeping her informed, focusing on  his needs and taking on risky projects without seeing their potential  for failure’ had all been ‘levelled against him since the beginning of their union’.

Bemused West Wing aides noted that Mrs Obama complained about being out of the loop, but had made it clear she wanted to work only two days a week.

After all, that was the schedule she had when she was a very important executive at the University of Chicago Hospital. If you’re good you should be able to do everything expected of you in two days or less.

Vineyard golf clubAll that bending over…it takes a lot out of you

His staff, she felt, should be lightening his workload and letting the vice-president and cabinet secretaries shoulder more of the burden.

      joey euclidjoey b Euclid ohio 11-15-11

Are you kidding? Joey’s already got his hands full.

At the same time, she felt her husband had lost direction and was not bringing about the political change he had promised.

Obama 2008

 

They began to feel that life in the White House was something to be endured rather than savoured.

bo mo coming home2Enduring and sacrificin’ for the ungrateful Americans in fly over

Such hints of feeling victimised and misunderstood will lead many to conclude she can’t get out of the White House fast enough.

Yes, I would agree. Many have concluded that she can’t get out of the Big White fast enough. And why don’t you take your little dog with you?

232x268C’mon Buh-rock, we gotta go. They don’t appreciate us anyway.

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, Thanks!