Martinis with Michelle–A Times (UK) Writer Jumps the Shark as Palin Helps Block a Senate Super-Majority

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of days ago I happened to spot the post over at PUMA P.A.C. entitled “Worth Repeating” which offers an encore presentation of an odious ode to Hillary “Nutcracker” Clinton.  Fast forward to mid-November and CNN’s obsession with the fashion f*ckups of First ladies  and how Michelle Obama is supposed to be our hope for a First Lady who really knows how to do it RIGHT.

Little did I know that there was something lurking in the archives of The Times (UK) that I had somehow missed in the first days following the election. It was published on November 5th, beating CNN to the punch–of course, I wasn’t thinking correctly in the aftermath of the depressing election and was not really looking for things to make me want to feel even sicker.  And this DOES make me want to vomit as reality has set in and the crap is so completely over-the-top that it makes Lewis Black seem discrete…

November 5, 2008

Michelle Obama: a new type of First Lady

Sarah Vine

That rather sad, muffled noise you hear behind the whoops and cheers of Democrat America is not the sound of defeated neocons mourning the passing of trickle-down economics; it is the sound of sobbing in the Élysée Palace. For Carla Bruni, reigning queen of First Ladies, the game is finally up. Cindy McCain would have been a push-over; even Sarah Palin she could have coped with, sexy specs or otherwise. But in Michelle Obama, Ms Bruni has truly met her match. This is a First Lady like none before.

In truth, from the moment Michelle Obama stepped on to that podium at the Democrat convention what seems like, ooh, about three million years ago, we all secretly knew which way this race was going. Sure, he had big, sticky-out ears; sure, all those luvvies made that embarrassing YouTube song about him; but if Michelle thought that he was OK — if she chose him — then he just had to be a good man.

Everything about this woman speaks to the modern, post-feminist woman: she is manifestly clever, independently minded, attractive in a normal, accessible way (and not in a scary, plastic-fantastic Cindy way). Her demeanour is a reassuring mixture of sassy and self-deprecating; her easy, confident dress sense neither too sexy nor too self-conscious. Most of all, however, she appears to be the personification of sanity, a woman who, while clearly supportive of her husband’s quest for world domination, is nevertheless not afraid to point out when he is danger of drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid.

(SNIP a brief discussion of two types of First Ladies, with Jackie Kennedy being the only style-queen among the bunch)

What makes Michelle unique is the way she so skilfully unites all three: supportive, independent and a fashion icon. Sarah Palin blew £90,000 on her campaign wardrobe but let’s face it, it is that blue shift dress that we all remember.

In the last American election, the big question was this: who would you most want to share a beer with? In this one, it was more like: who would you like to share a Martini with? The answer of course being Michelle. (Barack could maybe make himself useful by popping out for some crisps.) Michelle is not only invigoratingly intelligent, proud of her urbanity, but also unafraid of showing her abilities. She is certainly the only wife of a presidential candidate I can remember who, instead of playing herself down, played up the general uselessness of her husband in matters domestic — and in doing so not only held her ground intellectually but also reached out to all those women who, while devoted to their spouses, also find them slightly useless in matters of sock-tidying.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Michelle however is what having a woman lawyer like her in the White House means. For it is not often one can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there is an educated, intelligent, sensible female voice being heard in the corridors of power.

At the 2004 Democrat Convention in Boston, when the unknown Barack Obama stepped up to the plate to deliver the keynote speech, she famously said to him: “Don’t screw it up, buddy.” One cannot help hoping those words were repeated last night.

Well. The writer fell for the Sarah Palin clothes smear and doesn’t seem to remember that Hillary Clinton is a lawyer who lived in the White House. She trashes Cindy McCain and weeps for Carla Bruni.  And I don’t remember that blue shift dress at all, but I sure do recall the “black widow” number from election night.  As for wanting to share a Martini with Michelle…frankly, I don’t drink, but I may start any minute to help numb myself from 4/8 more years of this spew!

So who the hell IS Sarah Vine, anyway? Well, according to her publisher, Penguin Books, she

was born in Wales and raised in Italy. As a child she had a great capacity for reading comics, gossiping and trying on her mother’s shoes, all of which have stood her in excellent stead. She writes for the Times and is married with two children.

Stellar credentials, I guess for this sort of nonsense. She must have a least one daughter, because she’s created a website based on her co-authored book, “The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls.”  There’s a certain Victorian quaintness to this tome.  And is Vine confused as she refers to Michelle Obama as the epitome of the “modern, post-feminist woman”?  I don’t know, it’s seems real weird to me, a pre-post modern feminist.

Let me give you an example from the book. The site includes activity sheets for things like “making pom poms” and “palm reading,” to name a few.

But tucked away in the preview page for “The Great Outdoors” are instructions for falling out of a tree.  But before you get to that information, a girl will have to wade through this:

Falling
Learn to walk before you run; learn to fall before you climb. Knowing how
to fall properly is an art. Done well it is exciting, it looks great, can be very funny – and besides, crutches are such a bore.

Start by perfecting the stage faint, itself an invaluable accomplishment and a
useful exit strategy for all manner of uncomfortable situations (non-completion
of maths homework, getting out of PE, wanting the morning off school). Practise
it on a lawn or in a room with a thick carpet.

Bend your ankles, bend your knees and let yourself go floppy, collapsing
vertically at first, until you start to topple. The trick is to be very loose, very
relaxed, and not to stick out a hand or try to catch yourself; you are supposed to
be unconscious. The aim is to hit the ground from the ground up, so that the bits
nearest the floor land first, softening the impact. A crumple is really what you’re
looking for – first your calf, then your thigh, then your waist, then your shoulder.
For added drama, and to dissipate the impact, you may wish to add a half roll.
Land with your eyes shut (or if you’re feeling really confident, rolled back in
your head). Resist the temptation to open one eye to check the reaction.

I have no words…

Meanwhile, in the much-despised real world of Sarah Palin, the “polarizing bimbo” created by the media, we find that she was down in Georgia on Monday drawing large crowds as she campaigned for Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia Senate run-off election (which Chambliss has won and which blocks a Democratic “super-majority). Apparently, there are some GOP operatives who don’t see her as the “kiss of death” politically and it seems a lot of real people didn’t see it that way either:

Several Republicans have campaigned for Chambliss, including one-time presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. McCain campaigned in the state last month, but only Palin was tapped for election eve and four Georgia stops, reflecting her star status. Tommy Byler, 22, of Savannah marveled at the size of the crowd Palin drew compared to other top-tier Republicans who have campaigned for Chambliss.

“I went to see Mitt Romney a week ago, and I think there were only about 100 people there,” said Byler, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Palin’s face and the words “Sarah Palin Is My Homegirl.”

So, while Michelle Obama practices being “supportive, independent, and a fashion icon,” Sarah keeps soldiering on.  Ah, but can Palin do a stage faint???