Michelle Obama is being criticized in the media.
No, of course not in the American media. The Brits are the ones taking her to task.
From Sarah Vine, the Times, U.K.:
It was all going so well. The dresses, the brains, the Vogue cover shoot – everything so far about Michelle Obama has left us wide-mouthed in admiration. It seemed there was no end to her fabulousness. Then Mr and Mrs Brown came to stay.
Like all good guests, Sarah Brown arrived bearing gifts for the children, Malia and Sasha. And they were really nice presents. A bit of thought had clearly gone into choosing them: Top Shop dresses (with matching necklaces) and a selection of books by British authors. Lovely.
Mrs Brown may have two boys but she certainly knows the way to a little girl’s heart. These were gifts chosen in the true spirit of present-giving: to please the recipient, not the giver.
In return Mrs Obama gave the Brown children, Fraser and John, two toy models of Marine One, the Presidential helicopter. Fair enough on the helicopter part, always a popular choice with small boys; but Marine One? It’s not as though anyone needs reminding that Barack Obama is President or that he has his own helicopter. Short of giving the boys Action Man models of her own husband smiting the evil forces of neoconservatism, Mrs Obama’s gesture could not have been more solipsistic or more inherently dismissive of Mrs Brown.
Not only did she demonstrate that she spent approximately three seconds contemplating the needs of the Brown boys (having an aide pop to the White House gift shop for a piece of merchandising does not imply a great deal of thought), she appeared to show a most uncharacteristic lapse of judgment.
It might have been possible to overlook the incident were it not for the official photograph.
The White House released one picture of the two women and it does not appear to have been selected with any kind of special relationship in mind. There is a menacing bunch of pink peonies in the foreground and the angle is most unflattering to Mrs Brown, who has the air of a woman very much in need of a stiff drink.
Whether deliberate or not, the whole thing feels like a snub.
As for Fraser and John, their parents’ trip to America will always be remembered as the time that “Mum and Dad went to see the President, and all we got was this lousy plastic helicopter”.
Wow.
The audacity to criticize the American first goddess, our wonder woman, Michelle Obama!
I wonder what will happen when the White House finds out about this commentary.
Will Sarah Vine be put on the Obama enemies list? Will Robert Gibbs threaten her? Will she be "Limbaughed"?
Doesn't she know that Michelle Obama is off limits?
Sarah Vine will probably find out soon enough.
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Was 'Lady Macbeth' behind Barack Obama's snub of Gordon Brown?
9 comments:
The Obama's don't have a clue about protocol and I doubt that they are going to listen to anybody explain to them how things in the real world works. After all, they are King and Queen and they know all!
Hay, when you're raised in the ghetto plastic toys are a big thing!
Tell me again why a community organizer is qualified to be President. They are both just slum thugs.
Hay? Whatever.
Are you suggesting that Michelle grew up in the ghetto?
She was raised in a stable home, with two working parents.
While I vehemently oppose Obama's belief that you can spend your way out of recession and I disagree with his efforts to wage war against capitalists, destroying the savings of millions of average Americans in the process, it's ridiculous to call the Obamas "slum thugs."
I think the most logical explaination is that the Obamas are young and inexperienced in foriegn politics. But to imply that they are ghetto and/or slum thugs just proves how closed minded and racist the world is still.
Or perhaps since the US and the global markets are on the edge on ecomonic colapse the Obamas have more pressing matters on their minds than gift buying. Furthermore believe that the Browns are well aware of this and are not focused or even care as much as the media outlets that seem bent on turning everything into a contraversy to sell. If any of you would like to take up the US and the World problems and have everything you do under the microscope be my guest, but until then your time would be better spent trying to improve yourself and the world instead of posting snippy and insulting comments and proving how far humanity has not evolved.
I think the obvious explanation is this is the same stuff Bush gave Blair and this is just a single conservative news paper who has been against Britan and the US involvement and therefore has decided to write an article negative towards obama in hopes of supporting a change in policy.
Reading this a few months on, this newspaper's criticism is unbelievable. Even with an open mind, it is as if the editor has dropped the report of the visit on the reporter's desk with, daubed in red ink, the word, 'NITPICK'. To read so much into a reasonable gift for two young boys just embarrasses them.
A slum thug sneaks up on you and takes all your money against your will.
Plain enough?
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