Is it time for Michelle Obama to push more than fitness with her mantle?
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, March 8, 2013 - 0 Comments
Perhaps the elusive Mrs. O should pull a Hillary, and run herself
Pete Souza/White House
When Lexie Croft, a Wyoming mother, had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to video chat with the first lady of the United States this week, her complaint was corn dogs. The deep-fried hot dogs on a stick were being offered for lunch at her child’s public school, where, she said, “meal options include nachos with cheese sauce!”
Michelle Obama offered more than sympathy: she had a plan. Call her husband’s Department of Agriculture, which had just come out with new nutritional standards for public schools, she instructed. “They have people on staff” to help schools fix their menus. She encouraged the mother to “work with” like-minded parents and teachers if “your school lunches are not improving.”
This is what Obama does when she’s not donning couture gowns: her “Let’s Move!” campaign goes after the corn dogs, couch potatoes and the one-third of American kids who are overweight or obese. She does so with the carefully calibrated ferocity she brought to helping her husband get elected: just enough to be effective, but not so much that she’d look pushy, or worse, angry.
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High school football coach suspended after ‘fat butt Michelle Obama’ comment
By Emily Senger - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments
Michelle Obama’s behind is in the news, once again.
This time, Alabama high school…Michelle Obama’s behind is in the news, once again.
This time, Alabama high school football coach Bob Grisham has been suspended for 10 days after ranting against Michelle Obama’s mission to get lower-calorie lunches into schools. Part of that rant included Grisham saying: “fat butt Michelle Obama” is behind the strategy for 600-calorie lunches. He went on to say that Michelle Obama is overweight herself.
Unfortunately for Grisham, his comments were recorded and passed on to a Times Daily reporter. He also made several disparaging remarks about homosexuals in the recorded comments or, as he called them repeatedly, “queers.”
When Grisham apologized, saying he “misspoke,” he joined a list of other white men who have been forced to take back their words after commenting on Michelle Obama’s bottom, writes The Washington Post‘s Krissah Thompson.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has called her Michelle “My Butt” Obama for speaking about nutrition, and Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner had to apologize for commenting on Michelle Obama’s “large posterior.”
“We have a history in this country of white people not showing adequate respect for and devaluing the bodies of black women, and this most definitely falls in line with that,” Ayana Byrd, co-editor of the anthology Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips and Other Parts, told The Washington Post.
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Michelle Obama in 2012?
By Lianne George - Monday, August 25, 2008 at 11:57 PM - 0 Comments
Did we just witness the advent of the next great U.S. politician?
For those…Did we just witness the advent of the next great U.S. politician?
For those who missed it, Michelle Obama’s address at the Democratic Convention in Denver last night was pretty spectacular.
For weeks, observers have been complaining about her inability to convey sufficient warmth or, as one CBC commentator called it this evening, to generate the requisite “warm-and-fuzzies.” (Isn’t that what White House pets and Christmas decorations are for?) But last night, she nailed all of the key First Lady criteria: affability, sincerity, accessibility, shiny hair. Her critics will have their work cut out for them in identifying traces of anti-Americanism and elitism in this speech—the core of which outlined the key elements of her “improbable” (her words) personal journey, as well as her husband’s. Barack Obama has one hell of a teammate. Now they just have to sustain the optimism. It’s a long way down.
The full text of Michelle Obama’s DNC speech is available here on The Huffington Post
- AP
