Another “First” for the Obamas

Commentary Magazine ^ | March 16, 2009 | Jason Maoz

[Jbny]

Here’s where the mainstream media’s Obamamania goes from the merely embarrassing to the downright cringe-inducing: New York magazine this week turns its worshipful eye on the First Lady, with a cover proclaiming “The Power of Michelle Obama” and a roster of no fewer than 16 writers laboring to elevate her to the iconic status already bestowed on her husband.

By far the most sophomoric offering comes from Stacy Schiff, who delves into the “sexual politics” of the first couple. But as one has come to expect from that nebulous early ‘70s terminology, the reader is treated to a pastiche of feminist posturing, an ultimately meaningless pop-culture reference or two, and a generational triumphalism that is as grating as it is historically false.

[wolfcreek]

Gag me with a stick!

[freekitty]

They are so bs.

[x]

The girl is spicy and newfangled. She’s ushering us around a social corner as much as a political one. Professional rivals, Rock and Doris leaped out of bed in those pj’s the year Obama was born; only now are we discovering what a functioning marriage between equals actually looks like. …After decades of fake financials and fictitious balance sheets, WMDs that weren’t there and detention centers that were, our new First Lady is the genuine article. She has a real body — arms! Legs! Curves! And she has a real marriage.

And she knows this how?

Does she have a bug under their bed?

Most political marriages get "fake" over time as the political trumps the personal.

I doubt the Obamas are any different from other successful political couples.

[Professor_Leonide]

I guess the MSM’s love affair with BHO and “Toned Arms” is going to pull aside the very flimsy curtain of media objectivity. Sickening.

Of course, I do want to say - I thought these same people were saying the exact same words about the Clintons? Don’t these MSM lefties of no substance at least possess a memory?

[x]

The trick of attributing superhuman characteristics to a protagonist and then making him vulnerable through love is a literary trick as old as the Greeks. F. Scott Fitzgerald would have loved the Obamas, though one suspects that he would have edged Michelle into crazy territory or made her into a black Jordan Baker type, mysterious and cool with a borderline lesbian vibe. Love is the great equalizer, and it makes the reader less resentful of a supremely gifted hero.

Uh, okay ...

[x]

That last bit is by David Samuels, another writer in the current New York. He sounds even crazier.

[exist]

Hmmm how about the Obamas “first” spring break in Mexico. That would be cool.

[Nateman]

Slightly altered but still on the money. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then.

[ArrogantBustard]

supremely gifted hero.

And that has what to do with The Zero and The Shrew?

[OneWingedShark]

>She has a real body — arms! Legs! Curves! And she has a real marriage.

Hmmm, I can find much nicer “arms! Legs! Curves!” locally...

[Question_Assumptions]

We should be encouraging them to be as nutso and over the top as possible so that all but the like minded fools can see how crazy they are.

[Lorianne]

Yikes! The only thing more ghastly is contemplating what might have been written if Hillary had won.

[jadedeagle]

“our new First Lady is the genuine article. She has a real body — arms! Legs! Curves! And she has a real marriage.”

The article here falls short. It also forgets to mention "teeth" in reference to the first black first lady who is also known for using the phrase "My baby's daddy!!"

[Paul Ross]

I thought they would be talking about measurable "firsts"...

[ari-freedom]

well, Hillary used to be their only reference point. hence the sense of surprise in the quote:
“She has a real body — arms! Legs! Curves! And she has a real marriage.”

[Yaelle]

I am saddened at this news that Laura Bush has no arms.

[randomhero97]

LMAO!!!

[Dionysius]

I see! Now this effete fruit is channeling Scott Fitzgerald in proclaiming how the author would view the Obamas vis-a-vis characters in his “Gatsby”. Besides being hopelessly pretentious and supercilious by spouting off some half-baked rhetoric gleaned from an English 101 course, he deigns to tell me that I should feel less resentful of a man vastly superior to myself because he fell in love with a badly-dressed linebacker. All he has accomplished is deepen my Buchanan-esque hatred for the usurper poser Obama and all he stands for.

[lonestar]

MO’s jaw is in proportion to her butt...her most prominent body parts.