Say what, umptieth edition
I've been seeing Michelle Obama's face everywhere recently. She even made it to the front page of the Guardian, I'm pretty sure for the first time. Mostly the photos are unflattering and the coverage is, not exactly hostile, but very undermining.
This is significant for two reasons: a) it underscores the way in which Americans choose families and not individuals for office, which is kind of weird and potentially undemocratic, and b) it highlights the need the media has developed to have a female political punchbag, a dependency that's a hangover from their coverage of the Clinton primary campaign.
The recent rumours of a Michelle Obama / Louis Farrakhan joint appearance came very hot on the heels of the Clinton abdication, and showed what anyone living under 8 years of Bush administration should know instinctively: that those Carl Rove types really know their business, and they really know their audience. They know not only how to apply dirty tactics, but also who to apply them on - and they know that the electorate will tolerate, if not positively encourage, the blackening of reputations right now, provided that those reputations belong to women.
It boggles the mind that Michelle Obama is being written about as her husband's "weakness" and even "problem". Surely his weakness is that he's got very little political experience (he will be significantly older than Bill Clinton was if/when he enters office, yet with fewer major political jobs under his belt), virtually none in the international arena, and his problem is that he's facing an election during a time of severe economic pressures that naturally (if irrationally) give a following wind to a Republican candidacy?
The natural question is an exasperated "why blame his wife then??", but of course to that the answer is "because". With people still refusing to see the sexist coverage of the Clinton campaign for what it was and even calling sour grapes (we think she was treated badly by the media now that she's lost - which is factually untrue, but try proving you haven't got a sister, as the Hebrew saying goes), I'm frankly disappointed with myself for not having predicted this.
This is significant for two reasons: a) it underscores the way in which Americans choose families and not individuals for office, which is kind of weird and potentially undemocratic, and b) it highlights the need the media has developed to have a female political punchbag, a dependency that's a hangover from their coverage of the Clinton primary campaign.
The recent rumours of a Michelle Obama / Louis Farrakhan joint appearance came very hot on the heels of the Clinton abdication, and showed what anyone living under 8 years of Bush administration should know instinctively: that those Carl Rove types really know their business, and they really know their audience. They know not only how to apply dirty tactics, but also who to apply them on - and they know that the electorate will tolerate, if not positively encourage, the blackening of reputations right now, provided that those reputations belong to women.
It boggles the mind that Michelle Obama is being written about as her husband's "weakness" and even "problem". Surely his weakness is that he's got very little political experience (he will be significantly older than Bill Clinton was if/when he enters office, yet with fewer major political jobs under his belt), virtually none in the international arena, and his problem is that he's facing an election during a time of severe economic pressures that naturally (if irrationally) give a following wind to a Republican candidacy?
The natural question is an exasperated "why blame his wife then??", but of course to that the answer is "because". With people still refusing to see the sexist coverage of the Clinton campaign for what it was and even calling sour grapes (we think she was treated badly by the media now that she's lost - which is factually untrue, but try proving you haven't got a sister, as the Hebrew saying goes), I'm frankly disappointed with myself for not having predicted this.