Is Obama right: should GOP lay off his wife?
Yesterday, both of Tennessee’s Republican Senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, rebuked their state’s GOP for producing and posting a YouTube ad mocking Michelle Obama, wife of the likely Democratic presidential nominee, for her comments declaring that the success of her husband’s campaign made her proud of her native land “for the first time” (Via Instapundit).
I think they have a point. The ad allowed the Illinois Senator to gain some public sympathy by appearing the victim of an unfair attack. Yesterday, sitting beside his wife on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” he told Republicans to “lay off his wife.“
Hugh Hewitt, however, finds it entirely relevant to bring up Mrs. Obama as she has “has made long speeches full of political content in her appearances at campaign rallies made to encourage people to vote for her husband. This makes her a central figure in the campaign.“
I agree it’s entirely fair to challenge her on what she has said, but also think it’s counterproductive to dwell on some of her more absurd comments. Aware of Mrs. Clinton’s abrasive personality even back in 1992, the GOP tried to make her an issue in her husband’s campaign. That backfired, with people wondering why Republicans were making an issue of the Democratic candidate’s wife rather than promoting their own ideas.
Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff comes up with a two-tiered strategy that makes a lot of sense, with one standard for the Republican Party and another for bloggers and other pundits:
Barack Obama has warned Republicans not to pick on his wife. As far as the Republican party is concerned, that’s probably good advice at two levels. First, Obama really should be judged on his merits, not those of his wife (it’s worth noting, though, that Obama defended his wife’s most objectionable statement to date — that, as an adult, she’s never been proud of America). Second, as a political strategy attacking a candidate’s wife might well backfire.
But for bloggers and other commentators, the calculus is different. We criticize all sorts of public figures for objectionable public comments, including comments that show the author to be demanding, whining, self-absorbed, self-pitying, and infantile. There’s no reason why the wife of a presidential candidate should be exempt, particularly one who is campaigning as aggressively as Michele Obama is.
Since Mrs. Obama has been making speeches on behalf of her husband’s campaign, her comments should be subject to the same sort of scrutiny we would give those of any public figure. But, we must always remember to limit our criticisms to her remarks and to refrain from attacking her personally.
Not only do such attacks give ammunition to our political adversaries, but they’re also just plain bad form.
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The Obama Rules. Basketball fans remember the Jordan rules. Some of the odd Obama rules that are surprisingly new to politics,
Can’t comment on his ears, his father, his middle name, his religion, his pastor, his lapel pins, his Illinois voting record, his most liberal voting record in the US Senate. Now the free press can’t comment on his wife, her statements or her views on America.
Are there any more OBAMA RULES I’ve missed?
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — May 20, 2008 @ 8:32 pm - May 20, 2008
No! She put herself into this fray and now she can’t handle. If she can’t take the heat then she needs to extract herself completely.
Comment by rplat — May 20, 2008 @ 8:51 pm - May 20, 2008
Indeed.
From what “public”? It allowed leftists to rant and storm and posture, but they would have done that anyway, no matter what ad any Republican unit ran.
Well, that’s probably true. And that brings us to the present-day Republican Party’s relative lack of principles / agenda.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — May 20, 2008 @ 8:52 pm - May 20, 2008
Part of me wants to agree with Paul from Powerline. But as usual, there is one rule for Republicans and another for Democrats.
Remember when Chelsea was underage, the press wasn’t allowed to touch her. Rightfully so. But when the Bush girls were in a similar postiion (it’s true they were over 18, but still not 21) the press was all over their college drinking.
And these girls had nothing to do with the campaign.
Michele has been out there campaigning actively - she’s fair game. She wants to be our first Lady, it would be nice if she showed us she cared.
It doesn’t matter what the Republicans do or don’t do, they will always get smeared as being mean and evil.
Gene is right, what other Obama rules are out there for us???
Comment by Leah — May 20, 2008 @ 9:37 pm - May 20, 2008
Most important is to steer the public debate back to him, his character. Also, perhaps, to shape what the “proper” role of a First Lady is.
Comment by Jeremayakovka — May 20, 2008 @ 9:44 pm - May 20, 2008
4: Ummm…you readily admit that the girls were underage drinkers, but you don’t think that’s an issue? sorry, but it is. In addition, it came out that at least one of the daughters was using her secret service detail to get herself and her friends out of trouble during their drinking binges; I think most of the tax-paying public do see that as their business.
Comment by Kevin — May 20, 2008 @ 10:01 pm - May 20, 2008
I do not think the GOP should be fielding this type of ad. That is what surrogates are for. The Dems didn’t do the ads on “black churches burning” or a black man being dragged to his death, or GW’s ancient DUI…..they had their “arm’s length” associates take the flak.
Michelle Obama has been haughtier than John F’n Kerry and her view of America is offensive to the center or her own party. She said it and she owns it. But it is up to the GOP tier once removed to take her foibles to the people. Once again, the Republicans need to play by the Democrat rule book.
Comment by heliotrope — May 20, 2008 @ 10:13 pm - May 20, 2008
I don’t think it’s off limits, but I do think this shouldn’t get that much attention either. Politically you have to be very very careful when examining the wife (or husband) of a candidate. The more time you spend attacking the spouse of any candidate, the more it looks like your guy has nothing else to run on and you look desperate. Hannity sounds like an idiot when he spends all day obsessing on quotes from Mrs. O. It’s political emptiness at its best, and will do nothing to convince voters to vote FOR your guy. The more I hear about Wright, Meyers, the Mrs. et. al., the more I am convinced that McCain has no support within the party and is destine to loose, no matter who the opponent is.
PS. If the questions about a candidates spouse involves possible criminal activity… well, that’s a different story.
Comment by sonicfrog — May 21, 2008 @ 12:29 am - May 21, 2008
[...] band; I don’t think BOC ever opened with the Soviet National Anthem) Why should his wife be off limits when Hillary’s husband wasn’t and John McCain’s spouse won’t [...]
Pingback by 200,000 Condoms & some comments | The Anchoress — May 21, 2008 @ 2:03 am - May 21, 2008
Hell yeah! She’s inserted herself in the ring, therefore, it’s fair game.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 21, 2008 @ 3:01 am - May 21, 2008
Obama is one slick snake-oil salesman: he wrote long ago in one of his books about the need to pretend to be something he is not in order to succeed as a black candidate. He has no intention of taking off the mask to let Americans see who he really is, but his wife, his pastor, his friends, and the people he associates with betray the man behind the mask.
The GOP should absolutely use her rhetoric against him, but they should do it carefully. They might start by quoting that passage of Obama’s book and then showing clips of the Marxist rhetoric his wife regurgitates.
Comment by American Elephant — May 21, 2008 @ 5:24 am - May 21, 2008
So while she trashes America, we just grab our ankles, Dan?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 21, 2008 @ 5:55 am - May 21, 2008
#6: The “taxpaying public” doesn’t give a fu*k that two 19-year-old Texas co-eds bought some beer. You’re confusing “taxpaying public” with the “unapologetically partisan, liberal crapweasels working in the media.” I also don’t think anyone cares that Chelsea was a notorious pass-out-on-the-sidewalk-and-in-taxi-cabs, binge drinker while she was at Oxford. The difference was that we saw the Bush twins’ story on the home page of CNN.com, and we only got to see pictures of Amy Winehouse…er…Chelsea on one of her drinking binges in the U.K.’s less respectable tabloids. AND the media got behind Hillary’s desperate plea for her daughter’s privacy 100%.
Comment by Sean A — May 21, 2008 @ 10:39 am - May 21, 2008
The way to resolve this is to negotiate an agreement with all of the candidates and media outlets participating. I’m sure Obama’s campaign and the MSM would agree that there should be no double standards applied here and that what’s fair game should be measured by one universal standard that applies to everyone. I propose using the standard set long ago by the Democrats and the liberal media when Bush Sr. was President: everything is fair game including calling the First Lady ugly. Anything beyond that crosses the line. Problem solved.
Comment by Sean A — May 21, 2008 @ 10:47 am - May 21, 2008
#14 - And don’t forget when SNL did the Chelsea jokes on a “Wayne’s World” skit and the White House called up NBC and told them in no uncertain terms that she was “off-limits.” And the Peacock Network complied! Talk about a grab-your-ankles moment!
Compare that to how the whole Bush family has been trashed by the MSM and various “pundits” on the airwaves. And now, NBC is in the same fix because of improper editing of the President’s interview.
Scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites all - that’s your liberal coalition, folks.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 21, 2008 @ 10:48 am - May 21, 2008
There are three ways for wives of candidates to participate in a presidential campaign.
Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower and (to a lesser extent because she was pregnant) Jackie Kennedy were usually seen accompanying their husbands. If they went out on their own they were usually guests of honor at teas or luncheons and didn’t say much beyond how happy they were to be there. So far, Cindy McCain would seem to fall in this group.
Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush often “campaigned” separately from their husbands, visiting schools, day care centers, nursing homes, etc., and attending teas and luncheons. They talked about their children and (when incumbents) about life in the White House. Depending on the wife, they might talk about highway beautification, breast cancer, drug abuse or reading. They seldom if ever got into policy, leaving that to their husbands.
Rosalyn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, Teresa Heinz Kerry and, now, Michelle Obama actively campaigned, discussed policy and attacked their husbands’ opponents. (Bill Clinton, the first husband of a candidate and the first former president to campaign for a spouse, is in a category all by himself.)
Just as Carter, Clinton, Gore and Kerry were, Mrs. Obama is very legitimately “fair game” for responses and criticism from opposing candidates. The issue is whether Republicans (or the party’s 527 surrogates) should respond to her or ignore her. There’s a big risk when she becomes the subject of ads against the Obama campaign.
I personally think Republicans gain nothing from ads about Michelle Obama. They risk alienating Independents, especially women. When you have a whining media that considers an ad truthfully detailing a candidate’s voting record to be an “attack ad” or “negative campaigning” it’s probably wise to lay off the wife and focus on the candidate himself.
If call-in “polls” mean anything, the public is almost evenly divided on whether Mrs. Obama is fair game. At least when I left the house this morning a CNN call-in “poll” had 47 percent saying she is fair game and 53 percent saying she isn’t.
Far left bloggers like John Aravosis, who’ve become mouthpieces for the Obama campaign, have been viciously attacking Cindy McCain over her past abuse of painkillers and her refusal to release her income tax records. The McCain campaign, the Republican Party and surrogates don’t need to crawl through the sewers with them.
Comment by Trace Phelps — May 21, 2008 @ 12:29 pm - May 21, 2008
Quick question for all the seagulls and Obama apologists: if Mrs. BHO is “off the table,” then please explain this sign found at Obama’s campaign office by none other than CBS News?
I rest my case.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 21, 2008 @ 2:58 pm - May 21, 2008
Is Mrs. McCain out there making political speeches?
Not appearances… Actual speeches. In other words, is she a “civilian” or a “combatant”? Mrs. Obama has *made herself* very much a combatant.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — May 21, 2008 @ 4:17 pm - May 21, 2008
Oh and by the way, Trace, you touch on a good point: Why isn’t Obama out there rebuking
the far left bloggers? Why doesn’t he clean up all the logs in the eyes of the people in his own house, before rebuking specks in the eyes of others?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — May 21, 2008 @ 4:19 pm - May 21, 2008
Yeesh! If he were relying on his ghetto grammar, he’d been cooked a year ago.
Anybody else remember Michelle’s My baby’s daddy!?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 21, 2008 @ 8:39 pm - May 21, 2008
Perhaps the comments are more an opportunity to see Obama for who he is via Michelle.
Consider his choices: He chose to blame and call “unacceptable” free speech about his wife who is choosing to actively campaign for him. Nothing to the effect of: “I understand…or “maybe Michelle has been a bit vocal…”, no sense of any responsibility at all.
His solution to his problem in this scenario is to point fingers and attempt to control everyone else’s behavior.
I’d like also to mention that I saw this interview and while Obama sat in one chair saying “this is unacceptable” his wife sat next to him continuing to make comments about the election. Seems keeping her mouth shut is the last thing on this woman’s mind, while accepting her husband’s complicit blame for her remarks is perfectly okay with her.
These two are quite a pair…. they could have been more direct by saying “It’s all your fault and we don’t want to change.”
Comment by Patrick — May 22, 2008 @ 10:46 am - May 22, 2008
#21 - “I never knew that Bess, Mamie and Jackie were billionaire beer heiresses who lent their husbands their corporate jet.”
No, Chandie, but when Jackie’s greed landed her Ari Onassis, you can bet your bell-bottoms that she didn’t give a rat’s rear end about anything but herself and her kids. She was a tramp in my opinion.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 22, 2008 @ 11:24 am - May 22, 2008
#25 - Chandie, I for one have never heard of McCain himself calling his wife a c—t; that is MSM hearsay. If you have the links to back up your claims, then let’s see them.
And I stand by my conviction of Jackie O. So what if Ari never ran for office? The fact of the matter was that she was a selfish, grasping harpy who married for power (JFK) and money (Ari) to support her greedy lifestyle. She took and took, but never gave back. She even threatened to scuttle Ari’s will in the courts until Christina Onassis paid her $26 million to go away.
So don’t paint this picture of “poor Jackie.” You are way out of your league here, kiddo. Jackie typified today’s DNC: style over substance.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 23, 2008 @ 10:52 am - May 23, 2008
The kind of thing that Chandie WANTS to be true. I know, from past observations, that many leftists actively want to believe scum about heroes, and he is among those leftists.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — May 23, 2008 @ 12:35 pm - May 23, 2008
A leftie blog. Citing a leftie author. How very convincing.
Just as I said:
Chandie, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter: if it is true, it would be a matter between McCain and his wife, now wouldn’t it? But you’ve illustrated my point. Because of his military service, and especially his conduct as a POW, McCain is a hero. Heroes aren’t gods. They’re imperfect human beings… who nonetheless passed some difficult tests with surprising moral strength. But you, like many committed leftists, WANT to believe scum about heroes, especially military ones. You WANT to talk up (alleged) scum about them. Because you desperately need to destroy the implied contrast between them, and your own life. They for qualities or virtues you lack, and you can’t stand the contrast. So, by all means - keep spreading those McCain rumors! I understand your *need* to.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — May 23, 2008 @ 7:42 pm - May 23, 2008
(sorry, typo, missing verb - “They stand for qualities or virtues you lack…”)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — May 23, 2008 @ 7:43 pm - May 23, 2008
With Obama we started out, we couldn't talk about his big ears 'cause that made him nervous, and when he gets nervous he can't read the teleprompter.We've gone from that to this: Not only can we not mention his ears...
We can't talk about his mother.
We can't talk about his father.
We can't talk about his grandmother unless he does, and brings her up as a "typical white person."
We can't talk about his wife,
(If by "my wife" he means the shrill, dumb, trash-talking, bitter American hating female race hustler he might live with on his days off.)
We can't talk about his preacher (If by "my preacher" he means that blustering, conniving, ranting, spuming America-hating American-made millionaire that's spent decades ripping off the poor and credulous people of his parish.)
We can't talk about his terrorist friends, (If by "terrorists" you mean any of the bomb-making, baby-killing, homicidal religious maniacs in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran with 'legitimate grievances.'")
We can't talk about his voting record (If by "voting record" you mean a record so vacant of actual positions, actual yes or no votes, that it would be a discussion that takes less time to sum up than this sentence takes to read.)
We can't talk about his religion, (If by his religion you mean a set of "theological" assumptions and rhetorical crapola that only the dead would think had the least thing to do with Christianity, and a lot to do with personal enrichment and power.).
We can't talk about appeasement because only Obama knows how to talk to troublemakers which is why crime in his home-base around Chicago is now nonexistent.
We can't talk about color; we can't talk about lack of color, because in the realm of the rainbow there is no color, only the clear blinding light of his innate radiance.
We can't talk about race because, well, really Obama has no race except when he does, and that's not for us to say, only Obama, only late at night, and only when meeting with white people, black people, or muslims privately at which time, like the Grand Chameleon, Obama assumes whatever race best suits his needs.
We can't talk about the bombers and mobsters who are his friends. They might still hold a mortgage and they certainly hold his markers. Besides Bill Ayers feels he still "hasn't done enough" and may have a bomb with your home address on it.
We can't talk about his schooling because he's proved "too cool for school."
We can't talk about his name, "Hussein."
"What did you say?"
"I said, we can't say 'Hussai.....'" BLAM!
We can't talk about his lack of experience in everything except a cult of personality that fits in better with the Politburo than with the Congress.
We can't talk about his income. Or his wife's income. Or their joint income. Or what might be left over in their campaign coffers when his fleecing of the rich, the white, the young, and the guilty is complete.
We can't talk about his flag pin and sing, "First there is no mountain, than there is a mountain, then there...."
We can't talk about his ignorance of American geography because he's tired.
We can't talk about his ignorance of recent American history because he's weary.
Above all, we can't say that he is a liberal, but it is still okay to say, for at least 48 hours more, that he's like JFK with a tan and stick-out ears. (Strike that last thing about the ears because, remember....)
It started out we just couldn't talk about his ears.
Now we can't say anything about him.
So just shut up.
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/bad_americans/21_things_you_c.php
Comment by Vince P — May 23, 2008 @ 9:56 pm - May 23, 2008
Can’t talk about those either because to disagree with Obama is to engage in “politics of the past” or whatnot. And he finds that unacceptable.
Comment by Vince P — May 24, 2008 @ 2:17 am - May 24, 2008
I’m not familiar with the phrase “do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?”
I’m in Chicago.. we get all the latest fads years after they hit the coasts.
Comment by Vince P — May 24, 2008 @ 9:28 pm - May 24, 2008
If there ever was a rhubarb around here, it would be Chandie.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 27, 2008 @ 4:28 pm - May 27, 2008