When Barack Obama ran for president of the United States, his wife Michelle Obama admitted she was really proud of her country “for the first time in [her] adult lifetime.” For the first time, she didn’t feel so “alone in [her] frustration and disappointment.”
Thank goodness it only took her 26 years to feel proud of her country for once.
In Obama’s defense, the media made the important distinction that she was “really” proud, not just proud. Who cares?
By contrast, former First Lady Laura Bush gushed over the patriotism of Americans by recalling a story of a 60-year-old surgeon who obtained a waiver to serve in the military, an act she believed was “so typical” of the American people.
Perhaps more telling about Bush’s story is how little media attention it drew. The media made a fuss over Obama’s remarks, both defending and bashing them.
Even Bush defended her, asserting that “she probably meant ‘I’m more proud.'”
Whether Obama truly meant what she said misses a more fundamental point: A first lady should avoid controversy.
Obama still hasn’t grasped this important concept. In May, she invited poet and rapper Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. — a.k.a. “Common” — to a poetry reading at the White House.
One of Common’s poems, “A Letter to the Law,” compares former President George W. Bush to Saddam Hussein, asking, “Why they messing with Saddam? Burn a Bush.” In addition, his song “A Song for Assata” praises an escaped convict for murdering a policeman.
For Obama to invite someone who called for burning our former president and killing policemen to recite poetry at the White House is completely inappropriate.
In 2003, Laura Bush planned her own poetry reading but with a different twist.
Called “Poetry and the American Voice,” the event was supposed to be a tea party to celebrate American poets like Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman.
Bush’s event created a fuss among liberal poets who rejected her invitations requesting “the pleasure” of their company. The sickening request caused poet Sam Hamill to be “overcome by a kind of nausea.” Obviously, the only “legitimate” way to respond to such a heinous invitation was “to reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement,” as Hamill put it.
Bush’s event was as innocuous as a baby — nothing about it legitimately elicited negative attention.
Obama picked a divisive poet who wanted our president burned and policemen killed to speak at the White House and thought it was appropriate. She could learn a thing or two from Bush about how to be a proper first lady.
For example, at a middle school dance party in May, Obama danced the Cha Cha, the Running Man and the Dougie to a workout video by Beyonce.
Bush doing the Dougie is as inconceivable as finding a parking spot on game day — and yet Obama thinks it’s a fitting public performance for a first lady.
Bush stood for everything proper and elegant, and her faith in the American people is one of her many examples of the attitude a first lady should have. Obama’s lack thereof reflects how unsuited she is for her title.
Austin Casey is a 19-year-old medical physics junior from Mandeville. Follow him on Twitter @ TDR_Austincasey.
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Contact Austin Casey at [email protected]