2 MICHELLES, 2 AMERICAS & SHAME vs. PRIDE
By Michelle Malkin
Columnist
Like Michelle Obama, I am a 'woman of color.' Like Michelle
Obama, I am a working mother of two young children. Like
Michelle Obama, I am a member of the 13th generation of
Americans born since the founding of our great nation.
Unlike Michelle Obama, I can't keep track of the number of
times I've been proud - really proud - of my country since I
was born and privileged to live in it. At a recent speech in
Milwaukee on behalf of her husband's Democratic presidential
campaign, Mrs. Obama remarked, 'For the first time in my
adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not
just because Barack has done well, but because I think
people are hungry for chan ge.'
Mrs. Obama's statement was met with warm applause from other
Barack supporters who have also apparently been devoid of
pride in their country during their adult lifetimes. Or
maybe it was just a Pavlovian response to the word 'change.'
What a sad, empty, narcissistic, ungrateful, unthinking lot!
I'm just seven years younger than Mrs. Obama. We've grown up
and lived in the same era. And yet, her self-absorbed
attitude is completely foreign to me. What planet is she
living on? Since when was now the only time the American
people have ever been 'hungry for change'? Michelle, ma
belle, Barack is not the center of the universe.
Newsflash: The Obamas did not invent 'change' any more than
Hillary invented 'leadership' or John McCain invented
'straight talk.' We were both adults when the Berlin Wall
fell, Michelle. That was earth-shattering change. We've
lived through two decades' worth of peaceful, if
contentious, election cycles under the rule of law, which
have brought about 'change' and upheaval, both good and bad.
We were adults through several launches of the space
shuttle, in case you were snoozing. And as adults, we've
witnessed and benefited from dizzyingly rapid advances in
technology, communications, science, and medicine pioneered
by American entrepreneurs who year ned to change the world
and succeeded. You want 'change'? Go ask the patients whose
lives have been improved and extended by American
pharmaceutical companies that have flourished under the best
economic system in the world.
If American ingenuity, a robust constitutional republic, and
the fall of communism don't do it for you, hon, then how
about American heroism and sacrifice? How about every
Memorial Day? Every Veterans Day? Every Independence Day?
Every Medal of Honor ceremony? Has she never attended a
welcome-home ceremony for the troops? For me, there's the
thrill of the Blue Angels roaring over cloudless skies. And
the somber awe felt amid the hallowed waters that surround
the sunken U.S.S. Arizona at the Pearl Harbor memorial.
Every naturalization ceremony I've attended, where hundreds
of new Americans raised their hands to swear an oath of
allegiance to this land of liberty, has been a moment of
pride for me. So have the awesome displays of American
compassion at home and around the world. When millions of
Americans rallied to help victims of the 2004 tsunami in
Southeast Asia - including members of the U.S.S. Abraham
Lincoln Carrier Strike Group that sped from Hong Kong to
assist survivors - my heart filled with pride. It did a gain
when the citizens of Houston opened their arms to Hurricane
Katrina victims and folks across the country rushed to their
churches and offices of the Salvation Army and Red Cross to
volunteer.
How about American resilience? Does that not make you proud,
Michelle? Only a heart of stone could be unmoved by the
strength, valor, and determination displayed in New York,
Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., on September 11,
2001.
I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is
when a politician tells the truth. In this cas e, it's what
happens when an elite Democratic politician's wife says what
a significant portion of the party's base really believes to
be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride.
Michelle Obama has achieved enormous professional success,
political influence, and personal acclaim in America. Ivy
League educated, she's been lauded by Essence magazine as
one of the 25 World's Most Inspiring Women; by Vanity Fair
as one of the ten World's Best-Dressed Women; and named one
of 'The Harvard 100' most influential alumni. She has had an
amazingly blessed life. But, you wouldn't know it from her
campaign rhetoric and her griping about her and her
husband's student loans.
For years, we've heard liberals get offended at any
challenge to their patriotism. And so they are again
aggrieved and rising to explain away Mrs. Obama's remarks.
Lady Michelle and her defenders protest too much!
Michelle Malkin is a newspaper columnist
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