We were going to deny ourselves the opportunity to comment on Michelle Obama's amazing graduation address this weekend. But after 48 hours of festering, her words demand a response.
It was, in short, an embarrassing event. Here's why:
Commencement speeches are relatively easy compositions for writers to put in politicians' mouths. Graduations are happy times. Pols want to be associated with happy times. The publicity-seeking school wants a celebrity to grace the stage to confirm the day's import for the mere cost of an honorary degree.
So, they come. Congratulate the grads. Urge appreciation for supportive families. Offer one or two pieces of free advice that no one will remember. And get out of the way.
Not the Obamas. Not First Lady Michelle Obama. Presidential spouse is an unusual job. Unpaid. Unstructured. Presidential helpmate, privately. Sometimes publicly. So far, only women.
While hubby played golf this Mother's Day weekend, Mrs. Obama went to Alabama's Tuskegee University's. Her 3,700 words began in standard form, but quickly became a detailed recounting of American racism including the famed Tuskegee airmen who overcame it seven decades ago.
Then, her address took a turn we've become accustomed to expect more from her husband: The celebration of 500 hard-won graduations became instead a speech more about her.
(The full text of Mrs. Obama's address is here. The full C-SPAN video of her remarks is here.)
To hear the first lady tell it, this has been a pretty rough time for her, living in the White House rent-free with her mother. Many sleepless nights. Taking numerous globe-girdling trips to five-star suites costing taxpayers in excess of $44 million.
"As potentially the first African American First Lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations; conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and mis-perceptions of others. Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating? Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman?
"Then there was the first time I was on a magazine cover -- it was a cartoon drawing of me with a huge afro and machine gun. Now, yeah, it was satire, but if I’m really being honest, it knocked me back a bit. It made me wonder, just how are people seeing me.Read the rest of the Andrew Malcolm op-ed HERE.
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