Michelle Obama's Cookie Moment ... Give it a rest!

There are a couple of items over at Balloon Juice that John Cole brought attention to, and they turn my stomach. The first demonstrates that some on the Left can Swiftboat as well as the Right. The second shows that the Left still has a way to go to sink into the cesspool as deep as those on the Right.

FIRST ... I'm having a hard time finding a transcript of her actual comment, but apparently at an event in Milwaukee on Monday(?) Michelle Obama said:

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country,” she told a Milwaukee crowd today, “because it feels like hope is making a comeback.” ... “and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

You can see why many people are upset with this remark.
My goodness, she's never been proud of her country until now?
Shame, shame you uber liberal America hater!

Puleeeeze. If you think that the wife of a major party Presidential candidate would a) admit to never being proud of America until now ... or b) would actually say this in public ... then you are a partisan fool clinging in desperation for anything you can use to tear down Barack Obama in hopes of saving your candidate's damaged campaign.

Because that is not what she meant.

Do I know this for a fact?

No. But I will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Why?

Ask Hillary!

She knows what it is like as a prospective First Lady to say something in good faith and have it taken to an extremely absurd meaning. Laura Shapiro wrote in the Boston Globe:

PERHAPS THE LAST TIME anyone heard Hillary Rodham Clinton utter a spontaneous remark in public was the famous moment during the 1992 presidential campaign when she declared to a shocked -- shocked -- nation that she liked her job. Or, as she fatally put it, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession." Pandemonium ensued, and Clinton was pounded nearly to dust for seeming to disparage domestic life and its coziest symbol, the cookie.

Or ask John Kerry, who botched a joke about Chimpy Bush during the campaign and was accused of insulting the troops.

Democrats have been victims of this tactic over and over again. We should know better.
But today I read a knee-jerk reaction blog post by Progressive radio talk show host and ardent Hillary supporter Taylor Marsh and the subsequent reader comments sliming the Obamas. I often enjoy reading Taylor, but this is sanctimonious swill (not that she has pride in America, but that she uses Michelle Obama as a punching bag and feeds into the Right Wing meme). But it is really the reader mudslinging that made me completely ill. As John Cole said:

Taylor Marsh disgraces herself.

This quote and the reaction is Michelle Obama's "cookie moment" and here are progressives/liberals piling on with absolute glee. Disgusting.

For many years, I have been a supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton against a barrage of anti-Clinton sentiment from family, friends, the media elite and others. Until a few weeks ago I was going to vote for Hillary in the Arizona primary (after John Edwards dropped out). I had doubts about Barack Obama and one of my biggest concerns was ... Michelle Obama. But guess what? Her name isn't on the ballot. So, I took a fresh look at him and considered an Obama presidency, and just as important, an Obama campaign. I considered both candidates, studied some of their positions and assessed their chances in November. I value my vote, and weighed my decision carefully. And I chose Barack Obama and his version of change, his message of hope.

For all of you Hillary supporters who dismiss or ridicule my decision, you need to step back. Your venom is demonstrating one of the concerns I had ... How ugly would a Hillary campaign get?

I know the Obama campaign isn't blameless, it knows how to play dirty politics, too. But as Hillary Clinton falls further and further behind, her supporters are lashing out. I don't blame her. But I don't want that kind of campaign in this moment, in this time.

[And if Michelle Obama comes out and actually clarifies her comments to mean that she really hasn't been proud of America at all until this point in her life, then she will have sunk his campaign. So be it.]

SECOND ... I don't have the energy to write about it, I'll just link to it. Here is a (bitter) taste:

"... for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics."