RICHARD COHEN: Michelle Was Right About Her Country

IBD Editorials ^ | November 22, 2010 | By RICHARD COHEN

[Kaslin]

When I was 11, my father thought it was time to show my sister and me the nation's capital. I have only vague memories of that trip — the heat, the expanse of the White House's grounds, the Jefferson Memorial.

I do remember we took Route 1 through Baltimore (no I-95 yet), and it was there that I saw my first sign with the word "colored" on it — a rooming house, I think. This was 1952, and the United States was an apartheid nation.

It is Sarah Palin who brings back these memories. In her new book, she reportedly takes Michelle Obama to task for her supposedly infamous remark from the 2008 campaign: "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

Instantly, Republicans pounced. Among the first to do so was Cindy McCain, who said, "I have and always will be proud of my country." It was a cheap shot, but her husband's selection of Palin for the ticket and plenty of cheap shots from Palin ("death panels," etc.) were yet to come.

Michelle Obama quickly explained herself. She was proud of the turnout in the primaries — so many young people, etc. Evan Thomas, writing perceptively in Newsweek, thought — as I did — that she was saying something else.

He dug into her senior thesis at Princeton — "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community" — to find a young woman who felt, or was made to feel, "more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before." This was not a statement of racism. This was a statement of fact.

[BamaBlue]

I am so sick of this b...sh.t. Michelle went to Princeton and Harvard. Barack went to Harvard. Where the f... is the racism? Are these not people who grew up in the 60’s and matriculated to the highest level of US education? Were they held back by their race or their families economics?

My grandfather was an alcoholic and my grandmother an American Indian. The other set of grandparents were Irish immigrants. Each were manual laborers who didn’t have a pot to p... in. My mom and dad worked their tails off so my brother and I could go to school. I wish I had thanked them more before they both passed.

My brother and I are both very well off having lived the American dream. Not because of anything from the generations before us but because of the hard work of my parents and ourselves. We made choices in life...and quite frankly that is why we are where we are today. Not everyone will succeed financially in life...but everyone can make good choices or bad choices and those decisions will impact your life much more than a government. It’s time, no it’s past time, for individuals to take responsibility for their lives.

It’s well past time to put this racial cr.. behind us. I’ll hire anyone who can enhance my business. It is as simple as that. Make a choice and grow your opportunities or make a choice and kill your opportunities.

[Freee-dame]

In her new book, she reportedly takes Michelle Obama to task

I interpret this to mean that he didn't bother to read Palin's book, but is writing his comment based on some other pundit's comment. The number of people who feel free to comment on things they don't actually have knowledge of is huge.

President George W Bush gave many terrific speeches, but most people heard only one tiny non-representative sound bite over and over, leading them to be sure he couldn't speak.

[okie01]

By the way, this particular leftwing lunatic dimbulb is Little Richie Cohen, not the race-baiting Eugene Robinson.

[taxcutisapayraise]

Dingbat Robinson writes: “This was 1952, and the United States was an apartheid nation. It is Sarah Palin who brings back these memories.”

OK ... let's see what else brings back Eugene's apartheid memories:

1. Seeing a bus brings back apartheid memories, poor, poor Rosa Parks.

2. Watching a documentary on Mark Twain ... Eugene felt muddy.

3. A dollar bill with Geo. Washington is somewhat hard to handle since he owned slaves.

4. Knitting needles because his beloved great aunt was belittled back in the day. She knitted.

5. Golf and baseball sadden Eugene, too. You know it took a long, long time to break the color barrier.

6. Contractor licensing was enacted because black workers would work for less and were taking good jobs away from whites. Eugene doesn't really like it, but he's such a liberal he can live with it.

7. Peaches are famous in Georgia, a state in the formerly confederate south.

Eugene Robinson is a zealot by definition. His answer to any question posed is always the same, i.e. racism.

[anglian]

Since 1933 Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats.

In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.
LINK http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/12/13/194350.shtml http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/3/82.03.04.x.html

[popdonnelly]

Michelle Obama meant exactly what she said. It’s representative of the fact that many blacks can’t find anything in this country to be proud of. If you’re told constantly that everything in American society is oppressive, that’s how you’re going to feel.

[Steve_Seattle]

For Robinson, quoting someone’s actual words, in context, is a cheap shot.

[okie01]

There's no reason it couldn't be both. But come'on she was residing at the epicenter of liberal academia;

As the Hitchens note above points out, the central part of Michelle's thesis was an appreciation for black separationism (sic) and an admiration for the likes of Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton.

I guess Little Richie (and Evan Thomas) missed that part...

[UCANSEE2]

She probably felt a tingle go down her leg (shudder!) each Sunday when the racist “Reverend” Wright spouted his racist drivel for the 20+ years she attended his “church”.

Barack Obama said that "he attended, but didn't really listen".

I can believe that.

Michelle, on the other hand, seems like she did.

Besides, it is pretty much a given that Michelle picked their church.

[anglian]

A Conversation about Race - Pat Buchanan - Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2370875/posts

[mjp]

For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."

The irrational altruist-collectivist ideas of the intellectuals cause them to feel like displaced persons, alienated by the basic premises of the country, and hostile to the essential character of its institutions, its tradition, and its people.

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

Michelle Robinson directed her thesis questionnaire to Pton black alumni which formed the bulk of her research.

She was demonizing a group that she was not even a part of considering her pedigreeless background and being from the wrong side of the tracks in Chicago.

There is an upperclass society,well-heeled,Ivy grads of boarding schools,cotillions,etc..blacks that aren’t aff act and they don’t tolerate the likes of her. As I stated in previous post, the thesis was pure effrontery and Hitchens was right when he stated no known language to read it in.

[Last Dakotan]

Evan Thomas, writing perceptively in Newsweek, thought — as I did —

Thomas is perceptive and thinks like me - ergo - I am perceptive too! Damn fool.

[Diamond]

I've got to hand it Hitchens on this one. It is one of the funniest lines I've ever read:

"Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.” To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be “read” at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn’t written in any known language."

LOL

Cordially,

[MacMattico]

A thesis that right from the title page no left wing Professor would dare criticize because the subject matter made it wrong to do so, even if it was the worst paper they’d ever read. (I haven’t read it so I won’t comment on it’s content.) If you are a supposed poor, subjugated minority from the south side of Chicago, you should be damn proud of a country that puts you through Princeton.

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

one more: Thos. Jefferson and the whole slave/mistress/love child thingey

[okie01]

As I stated in previous post, the thesis was pure effrontery and Hitchens was right when he stated no known language to read it in.

I've read it. Or tried to... Michelle comes across as a very unhappy, incoherent and illiterate young lady.

Strike "lady"...

[LibLieSlayer]

This guy needs a colonic... Nurse Ratchet... and about 50,000 volts.

LLS

[TNCMAXQ]

I read a few lines of that thesis when it first appeared on the web and thought it must have been a bit from the Onion. Sounded like it was written by a grade schooler. But if Hitchens says it’s legitimate I guess it is. Funny comment he made, and apparently right on target.

Cohen’s assertion that Palin is somehow bringing back an era of slavery and apartheid is of course as absurd as any comment from the far left equating conservatism with racism. Total bull.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Yes, Eugene, the word "Colored" is such an ugly and tired word. It's a good thing it long ago faded into the darkness of history along with other useless organizations and nostrums. Only racists, the absurd and those interested in perpetuating divisions among the population would even think of using it today.