Saturday, March 28, 2009

Freelance Trash Talkers

The proliferation of rabid conservative trash talk against
First Lady Michelle Obama would be funny if it wasn't so
mean-spirited, unwarranted and just plain sad. Right
wing pundit Burt Prelutsky at Townhall.com is so deeply
perturbed by the fact that "everytime (he) turns around,
there she (this exceptionally poised and photogenic woman)
is on a magazine cover" that he just has enough saliva to
spat "
The burning question in my circle is: if the First Family
gets a female dog, will she be the First Bitch or will she have
to settle for second place?"
Oh, no, he didn't!

Prelutsky's seems oblivious to the fact that magazine editors
put certain people on magazine covers because they sell
magazines. There is no altruism in that business. If Mrs.
Obama is on so many magazine covers it is because she
is moving copies. If she wasn't, somebody else would be
on those covers. Which makes spittle-mouthed Prelutsky's
next statement even more ridiculous:"Naturally, the
left-wing media is now trying to convince us that this
James Brown-look-alike has all the allure, glamour and
fashion sense of Jackie Kennedy." Yep, that must be
the case except for the inconvenient fact that anything
almost wholly owned by the likes of Rupert Murdock,
Summer Redstone, GE and the Disney Corporation is
anything BUT left-wing.

Prelutsky believes in respecting the Office of First Lady but
does not hesitate to disparage First Lady Obama because she
"attended the same racist church as her hubby for 20 years."
As Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" would say, "How convenient!"

But let's put that aside for a moment and consider
right-wing radio host and commentator, Tammy Bruce,
who had the temerity to call Michelle Obama "trash" in
reaction to the First Lady's visit to a Washington D.C.
public high school. Inspiring inner city students to speak
the "King's English" and to strive for excellence made
the First Lady "trash." Really?

I said earlier this would all be funny if it wasn't so sad. And it
is sad because this is not the first time in my life I have seen
the wife of a popular President vilified by a rabid press and
largely impotent opposition after a major sea-change in the
national political climate.

It was nearly thirty years ago and that woman was Nancy
Reagan, a refined and graceful woman who suddenly morphed
into the Wicked Witch of the West after her enormously
popular husband was elected President in 1980.

There is another simularily between the Obamas and the
Reagans: they are couples where both parties clearly
adore one another. So how do political scoundrels hurt
an enormously popular President? By attacking the
person nearest and dearest to his heart.




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