Category Archives: Etiquette

How She Sacrifices For Us

Barack Obama, Etiquette, Europe, Foreign Policy

Is it the cramped quarters of her private jet? Jet lag? Too many haute couture dress fittings; layers of war paint? Michelle Obama elaborates on the hardships she and the Other O have endured in recent days for the good of the … kids:

“As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home. As first lady, as many of you know, I’ve made it a priority to bridge the gap between the White House and communities across D.C. and across the country…I’ve spent much of my first nine months trying to open the doors to the White House to kids who might not otherwise see themselves having access to these institutions, because that’s where I came from – communities like that where kids never dreamed that they could set foot in the White House, let alone live there… And Barack and I made a point of doing the same thing when we lived in Chicago – making the concerns of kids in all sorts of communities our own.”

[SNIP]

The stress must have caused Mrs. O to suffer some hearing loss. Everyone is saying the exact opposite about her gallivanting around the globe with the Fat One for no good at all.

When it comes to Mr. O, time away from the President’s Office is not a bad thing; it means that for a while, he get to do less damage.

I wonder when the Europeans will get sick-and-tired of the Obama dog-and-pony show. I assume they have some pride.

Update II: The POTUS & The Pleasure Principle

Barack Obama, Etiquette, Healthcare, Media

They barely reported it, and were mum about the implications: President OBama hit the golf course on Memorial Day. The parrot press pretended it was the thing to do, filibustering with white noise like: “It was not immediately clear who joined the president for the round of golf.”
Every time Bush retreated to cut brush on his Crawford ranch (much to my relief), the same moron menagerie denounced him for dereliction of duty. Denunciations of the disrespect the POTUS showed “our warriors” and a word or two about the “dignity of the office” would have been in place were the media in the habit of speaking truth to the Obama powerhouse.

Did you notice how Barry and Bride routinely get decked-up and fly out for a night on the Town — usually a different town than the one they live in — after their posse shuts it down? Next is a big, shiny Jacuzzi tub on the White House lawn. Mark my words.

Update I (June 1): The Mail Online on THE PRICE OF KEEPING THE POTUS OUT OF MISCHIEF FOR AN EVENING:

“The romantic jaunt is estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £45,000 in transport and security costs – because the date was in New York.

The President used three planes, one to carry the couple and two to ferry aides and reporters all the way from Washington.

The cost of each flight was thought to be nearly £15,000.

The bill was pushed even higher with the use of two helicopters, one to take the Obamas to catch their plane in Washington and another to zip the party into Manhattan from JFK airport.

Police also shut down New York streets for the motorcade to pass through so they could get to their date on time.”

Update II: Trivial, I know, but scroll down for a glimpse of Michell Obama’s wings—a photo of her ripped back. Freaky.

Gangsta Gifts

Barack Obama, Britain, Etiquette, Music

The excerpt is from “Gangsta Gifts,” now on WorldNetDaily.com:

“Hip” is how rapt reporters referred to the iPod the president and first lady gave the Queen of England. Thanks to his fawning friends in the British and American media, Barack Obama got away with giving another foreign dignitary a vulgar gift.

Shades of the reality show “Cribs”…

The MTV series features hip-hop rappers, and other American royalty, showing off their incredibly gaudy homes, CD, DVD, and iPod collections. (If there are any books in the house, these are well hidden.) They then send the loving camera crew packing.

The Obama iPod was no ordinary “small portable digital audio player capable of storing thousands of tracks in a variety of formats, including MP3.” As any teenager would for his crush, the tacky pair had personalized the thing. How do you customize an iPod for an 82-year-old monarch? …

Commensurate with the president’s signal solipsism, you make sure that there are plenty of images and audio from his inaugural and DNC addresses. … ”

The complete column, “Gangsta Gifts,” can be read now on WND.com.

Me, Myself And I = Michelle O

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Britain, Education, Etiquette, Feminism, Race, The Zeitgeist

“Being smart is cooler than anything in the world,” America’s first lady told a gaggle of squealing, high-fiving, weeping girls at a North London school. And Michelle Obama should know, no?

“If you want to know the reason why I am standing here, it’s because of education,” she told them.

“I never cut class. I loved getting As, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler [should be “was cooler”] than anything in the world. You, too, with these values, can control your own destiny. You, too, can pave the way.” She urged them to believe in their dreams.

“For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady [There she goes again]. I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of. I was raised on the South Side of Chicago — that’s the real part of Chicago.”

Cut the cr-p.

Michelle Obama was raised in a country where affirmative action saw to it that mediocrities like herself usurped the real meritocracy. That pesky detail the first wife forgot.

I read Michelle’s university thesis; it’s the product of a banal, third-rate mind. I grant that her meteoric rise had to do with some hard work and pushy grit, but, more than anything, Michelle is a product of affirmative action—a product of a society where, as Joseph Farah put it “black [is] the new color of privilege.”