Magnificent Michelle: "‘Whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say."

[BeyondGeography]

NYT: Michelle Obama Looks for a New Introduction

Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign plane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image.

Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Mrs. Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of “whitey.” Mrs. Obama shakes her head.

“You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be,” she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: “I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me.”

Yes, it is "makeover time," at least in the eyes of the MSM, which takes pleasure in bending the lives of those who would be our public leaders to their will. Here's hoping Michelle's "makeover" won't be the usual exercise in conformity and surrender, but an affirmation of who this great woman really is.

Rather than pulling Mrs. Obama behind a curtain, her husband’s campaign is pushing her farther out on stage. She remains a charismatic presence, and when she gives her husband a fist dap or talks of him as a father, she is telling voters, this is a regular guy. This South Side woman anchors him in her reality.

In coming weeks, Mrs. Obama will visit the spouses of military personnel and talk of the patriotic duty to provide these families with care and services. And the campaign has hired Stephanie Cutter, a veteran strategist, as her chief of staff, who will seek to deflect attacks.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, a close ally of the Obama campaign, says Mrs. Obama must stop sounding like a lawyer trying to win an argument. The trick, she said, is “not pushing so hard to persuade people that Barack is the right one.”

“All she has to do is be likable,” Mrs. McCaskill said.

Mrs. Obama has already had to check her brutally honest approach to talking about race. Now she co-stars in a campaign that would as soon mute most discussion of race.

As her plane descends into a northern Montana valley, she sounds like a woman who wishes she could sit voters down for a long talk. “You know, if someone sat in a room with me for five minutes after hearing these rumors, they’d go ‘huh?’ ” she says. “They’d realize it doesn’t make sense.”

She extends her long arms, her voice plaintive. “I will walk anyone through my life,” she says. “Come on, let’s go.”

(That's our next First Lady during the March 18 speech in Philadelphia. Some good vignettes about Michelle at school and work are also in this article.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/us/politics/18michelle.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[jakem]

1. George Jefferson for VP?

gotta love George...

[goldcanyonaz]

2. Nevah! Weezy or no one!

[nxylas]

4. It's like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson rolled into one

A twofer.

[SwampG8r]

3. “Come on, let’s go.”

this needs to be her rallying call
and it plays well with yes we can


YES WE CAN
C'MON LET'S GO!

[DangerousRhythm]

5. George Jefferson

I LOVE that she said this. I was totally thinking it, myself. It's so antiquated, really, that word. So very 70s sitcom or movie, y'know? Who even says that anymore? It's how I knew from the start that supposed, mythical tape was B.S.... that and Michelle is WAY too classy for that nonsense.

[AspenRose]

8. Exactly

Racist GOPers are so out of touch and stuff like this reveals it.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. Apparently she's reading this forum because that's exactly what we said! LOL! n/t

[DarienComp]

7. Now, watch the conservatives (and Larry Johnson)...

"OMG, she said 'whitey'!!"

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

9. Watch Faux run a piece on the relationship between the Obamas and

that known bigot George Jefferson.