How Deeply Does a Wife Influence Her Husband’s Worldview?
From a review at the Financial Times of three Obama-related biographies, “In Search of Obama”:
Most evenings Obama dines upstairs with his family in the White House private apartment. Then he usually works alone and often scans the internet for news (another first for an American president). He rarely picks up the phone to chat with advisers or allies. Whenever the Obamas host larger events, “there is no mistaking when the party is over”, one visitor tells Kantor. The Obamas spend almost all of their purely social time with Valerie Jarrett, the ubiquitous senior adviser and original Chicago mentor, or with the Whitakers and the Nesbitts – also from Chicago.
Kantor does a good job of describing how quickly the bubble formed around the Obama White House – and how easily it is to get accustomed to what comes with it. Early in his presidency, Obama took the first lady on Air Force One to New York on a dinner date and a visit to Broadway. In spite of having created a massive traffic jam, the president was astounded at the criticisms of his evening out.
Michelle is the hero of Kantor’s book. Having made an awkward start, her role has steadily grown alongside her national popularity. One retail analyst estimates that the first lady boosts sales of any item she is seen wearing by an average of $14m. This is star power indeed – more Duchess of Cambridge than, say, Laura Bush. Michelle’s aides used to refer to the White House’s East Wing as “Guam”: pleasant and powerless. But Michelle’s touch has grown steadily more sure. Once pliable, she nowadays holds back from agreeing to campaign appearances unless advisers give her a say in the strategy. Mostly she sticks to the safer territory of childhood learning and obesity.
According to Kantor, the Obamas have not made a single new friend in Washington. This should come as no surprise. After daughters Sasha and Malia quit their weekend soccer team, half the remaining players dropped out. Their parents apparently saw no further value in participating. Even the simple act of watching a school performance has to be re-staged in the White House. The First Couple have learnt how disruptive their attendance can be. Frustrated at the lack of good piano teachers, Michelle persuaded her daughter’s teacher to move to Washington from Chicago. A little worryingly, the president apparently views his first lady as his ultimate “reality check”. It is Michelle who tells Obama what the real America is thinking, according to Kantor. Let us hope there is another. Kantor is pretty confident that there isn’t. “The Obamas burrowed ever deeper into a tiny pre-existing circle,” she writes. “Their behaviour was on the far side of introverted.”
Oh.
One of the persistent themes that appeared when I analyzed Obama-mentor Derrick Bell’s Afrolantica Legacies is a spiritual belief in the goddess-like wisdom and strength of ethnic women. To see how Bell put this principle into practice in his personal life consider Afrolantica Legacies‘ follow-up, a memoir titled Ethical Ambition. In the book Bell describes how his second wife proposed marriage after knowing him for only 3 months, never meeting him in real life, and solely on the basis of how much she loved his ideas. (His first wife lay on her death bed with breast cancer at the time that Bell chose to take a “principled stand” in resigning from Harvard to protest the institution’s unwillingness to hire an ethnic Marxist female professor. Think about that — your wife dying and you decide to give up your amazing position at the world’s most prestigious university on behalf of another woman. A crew from WGBH shot the video of a 28-year-old Obama praising and hugging Bell at a rally in the Spring of 1990; Jewel Hairston Bell died that year in August.)
I had heard at some point that Michelle’s mother also lives in the White House. That may add a who new layer to this cake.
– perfectly capable of destroying the country on his own.
I do not believe obama can walk and chew gum at the same time
…someone, somewhere is pulling the strings..if you put obama up without a teleprompter or knowing every question it’s before hand..he cannot handle the situation…
Also, i totally disagree with making fun of MIchelle Obama’s looks.
I don’t like her, her husband etc..but it’s childish to say some of the things we read…it’s as if you really don’t have a point, you just want something to say.
AND, it’s very interesting..and telling…that all the pictures we see of a younger Obama are of him and his “white” friends..
I dislike obama’s policies, way of doing things etc…i don’t care if the man’s skin color is green and yellow polkadots..
If you vote for him and disapprove of him and his policies..then you are doing a disservice to our nation,
The fact that I believe someone else other than obama is running things is what scares me the most..
Obama constantly talks about his wife’s influence. I think it’s an open fact that she wears the pants.
The woman who wears the pants, is always by Obama’s side and, reportedly, has been heavily influential in some of his poorer decisions (like the Olympics débacle, like Van Jones for Green Jobs Czar, and other bad choices) is Flatterer-In-Chief and former Chicago slumlord, Valerie Jarrett.
Ah yes! You are right.
But then, would Valerie Jarrett hold that position without the approval of Michelle? I doubt it.
oh to be that fly on the wall…
Michelle appears to be the dominate in the relationship….so WHO does she go to for advice..who are/is her mentor?
Up late at night…calling someone for a ‘talk”…”advice”?? who is it?
It might have been different if the man had a spine. But he does not. He’s a jellyfish, has been all his life; totally goes with the flow of whatever peers he happens to be hangin’ with at the moment. And unfortunately, he has always chosen unwisely.
Michelle is further to the left too. Listened to her speak once during the campaign in 2008. Visualized her in a Cuban uniform with an AK-47. The woman has “dominatrix” written all over her…
With the parents he had and the influences in his childhood, Moochelle didn’t influence his worldview so much as reinforce it.
Michelle hates honkies. That’s her worldview. That and that alone. And to suggest there is more to her than that is either to be a fool or a con man for her team. Barry hates honkies too. But being a grifter to the core he practices misdirection. Not very effective misdirection but at least an attempt is made at putting the moves on whitey, as opposed to Michelle’s in your face unadulterated out there hatred of honkydom.
in his earlier pictures…alllllll we see are obama and “whitie”…can’t hate too much..
maybe some white girl put him down?…
what’s the song…”HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW”..might fill in some places in his life with whitie
“Spengler” (aka David P. Goldman, also found on this forum), who you quote at the end, has always had the Obamas “nailed,” specifically the role of Michelle. When He wrote his analyses on the Spengler forum, he was vilified for his “racism,” etc. But Spengler/Goldman has every right to declare, “I told you so.”
This is beginning to sound like the Evil Edith Wilson as the power behind a stroke-debilitated Woodrow Wilson. Although, at least Edit White Bolling could legitimately claim Native American ancestry as her father was descended from Pocahontas and John Rolfe.
Betch Fauxcahontas Elizabeth Warren would like to debate you on that…hahahahaha …
It is Michelle who tells Obama what the real America is thinking, according to Kantor.
Really ? The same Michelle who said during the ’08 campaign that Americans were lazy and complacent and that her oh-so-wonderful husband was gonna take them outta their comfort zone ?
Didn’t both Michelle and Wise Latina Sotomayor get a leg up through Affirmative Action?
Enough of these stupid books and these stupid sycophantic paeans.
A weak leader with a very ambitious wife = recipe for disaster
A weak leader (irrespective of his skin colour) with a very ambitious wife = recipe for disaster
Ask Claudius.
‘Cept Claudius was no weak leader.
Ask Nicolae Ceaucescu….
“According to Kantor, the Obamas have not made a single new friend in Washington. ”
Seems like that would hold true for anywhere else in America too. Enemies yes, friends, no.
*BOOP BOOP BOOP* I blame it on her fat arse too.
Come on Delia..you have better things to add than comments on what you think of a person’s looks..
You should read Spengler’s/Goldman’s takedown of Michelle’s Princeton undergraduate thesis. Besides the misspellings (and mis-thinkings) there are hints of her future gravitation to a church like JWright’s and to the kind of thinking that underlies Black Liberation Theology.
Sing, o muse, the wrath of Michelle
Yeah, Spengler was all over this four years ago:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JB26Aa01.html
The second article is the most brilliant warning of impending doom I’ve ever read.
The first one is just plain scary as hell.
Everybody should read them both for a new appreciation of Spengler.
He was a prophet if there has ever been one.
He also thought Obama was going to lose in 2008. He’s good, but we have to be fair.
Perhaps he was just overly optimistic about the “good sense” of the American voter. But since they were never provided an accurate picture of the man, perhaps they shouldn’t get all the blame.
Michelle’s Princeton undergraduate thesis could have been better written by a high school student.
“After daughters Sasha and Malia quit their weekend soccer team, half the remaining players dropped out. Their parents apparently saw no further value in participating.”
Can’t you just hear the annoying, striving parents talking to other parents? “My daughter plays soccer with the President’s daughters.” (It holds quite a bit more panache than, “My daughter used to play soccer with the President’s daughters.”)
So universal, and, yet, so Washington.
I’m not so sure I’d make friends in that town, either.
The Obamas’ reasons are probably different from mine, though. They’re territorial, and distrustful of those who threaten their power.
I see Michelle as being more of a Jackie Kennedy than a Hilary Clinton. I think she sunk her talons into Obama initially because she saw him as being her ticket to a good life that she wasn’t sure she could attain just on affirmative action alone. Her aspirations lean more towards being on the cover of Vogue than being ambassador to France (a la Pamela Harriman) and she’s certainly more concerned with hem lengths and shoe colors than she is with who’s starving or if the Muslims will bomb New York again. Some of the pictures you see of them together give off a real Charles / Di vibe, and other times they’re almost hysterically giddy together, as if they can’t believe anyone is buying their touchy-feely love act. I’ve never sensed the same warmth and respect between them that I used to think I saw between George and Barbara, and George and Laura, but I *do* see the same shackled-together distance as you see between Hilary and Bill. I can see her going all Lady MacBeth on him, but it would be about losing her private jet perks, trips to Martha’s Vineyard, or having people laugh at them than it would be on American issues like freedom of speech or the right to carry a gun. I *could* also see her as being the hired hall monitor keeping track of what Obama is doing and reporting back to overseas puppet masters if the price were right. (I hope she ends up in a burka some place really really hot.)
Just one other piece of information for you to think about.
As you probably know, homosexuality is looked down upon even more strongly in black communities than in white communities. One of the functions black preachers have performed for decades is to help legitimize otherwise successful black homosexual males by pairing them up with female members of their congregatiions who can’t attract a husband.
Draw you own conclusions.
His last trip to SF / LA he spent all his time with the gays, lesbians and transgenders. Nada zip zilch with the people of non-pallor … despite their sermonizing and rants *against* said gays / lesbians / etcetcetc.
Common sense would say, however, he was simply going to where the money is.
So where does Valerie Jarret fit in this threesome?
If it’s in proportion to her rear end I’d say she’s running the whole show.
Be gone, imbecile.
November.
This is a frightening thought.
Whitney Houston running the country. Except Whitney didn’t hate white people.
My disapproval of the Obama presidency is as vehement as anyones, but vulgar, personal, degrading insults are un-Christ-like, ungentlemanly, and unlady-like. I expect conservatives to have higher standards of integrity. And they should not be accepted on this comment section.
How deeply does a daughter influence her father’s worldview? Just-married Mary Cheney has a father who supports gay marriage.
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/mary-cheney-daughter-vice-president-dick-cheney-marries-partner-heather-poe-article-1.1101121
Didn’t he admit he was a blank slate? I guess we know who writes on it.
She that MUST be obeyed, on steroids.
“…her role has steadily grown alongside her national popularity.”
Really? She’s more popular now than when she was “proud of the USA for the first time in her life”? What with the telling us how to eat and so on?
The first five minutes I knew of her, I didn’t like her for years.
I thought this (even tho it isn’t exactly on michelle) is woth a look!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/06/22/gabor_steingart_obama_missed_the_point.html
Michelle Obama reminds me of Elena Ceaucescu, although Ms Ceaucescu was more charming and better looking than Ms Obama. Imagine- Communist Romania as a role model for America
Yes, well, they came to a messy end, didn’t they?
Makes one wonder how their post-White-House life will go.
Where will Michelle steer him? In the direction of money and power, but his November humiliation, along with a legacy of failed legislation and final days of hiding from a Congressional investigation into a pile of dead Mexicans topped by a dead federal agent, is going to hit their mojo so hard they’ll have to remake themselves in some fundamental way. How to do it?
Michelle will disdain the examples before her — the unglamorous one-note weirdness of Al and Tipper, and the homey mortification of Jimmy and Rosalynn. The Clintons will keep her off their territory like gang lords. The Obamas will go for something like a pair of beautiful, brilliant saints who were tragically ahead of their time, unappreciated and undeserved by the country that perversely rejected them, although I think Michelle wants to be more relevant than that. Hell, Jill Biden will probably have a more “real” afterlife than Michelle.
The Obamas will have to protect their privacy fiercely after they leave the White House to hide Michelle’s shrill anger. They will both have a difficult, circumscribed life, watching helplessly as America’s prosperity and power increase (although they’ll take some credit for that and bask in the greatness they tried to destroy). President Rubio’s two terms will leave them vanquished and small. Someday those who tired of the Obamas’ company will talk to an historian and we’ll know in detail just how bad it was.
That’s my take.
When he’s not giving speeches for money or promoting his next book (who will write it, I wonder) I expect he’ll be campaigning again – this time for UN Secretary General. (“Who better to lead a World Government?” he must be asking himself.)
As the UN Sec Gen may not be any citizen of the Security Council’s five permanent members, I suppose Barry O will re-claim his Kenyan citizenship so he can get that job.
“He’s an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner.”
Obama won a Grammy? I thought this must be some sort of delusional remark on Michelle Obama’s part but I see in Wikipedia that it actually happened. I couldn’t figure out how he won a music award since I’ve never even heard a claim that he can play a musical instrument. It turns out he did a spoken word recording of some of his own (sort of) thoughts.
Of course the music industry is just a branch of the entertainment industry which is overwhelmingly Far Left in its politics so it isn’t surprising that he won a Grammy as the obvious Second Coming that he was at the time….
Re: the analogy to the Ceausescus. Within Romania, the Ceausescus were the top of the power pyramid, and Elana was not only the power behind the throne, but was also the brains. The only greater power was the USSR. As long as she gave them their tribute, it all worked.
The Obamas have a similar dynamic, except Michelle isn’t anywhere near as smart as Elana. Which raises the question; who’s the USSR in this relationship?
who’s the USSR in this relationship?
The leftist media-academic-union elite
Regarding the question asked in the article title: The book of Genesis answers the question very well.
Quote from Michelle’s thesis:
“I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.””
Ironically, she was right. She didn’t belong. However, it wasn’t her skin color that made her an outsider. The simple fact is that everyone else on campus was head and shoulders above her in sheer smarts. She was there BECAUSE of her skin color, not because of her brains. And she was too dumb to realize it.
I’ve always thought Michelle runs that family. I think Barak is basically a very weak man.