Michelle Obama bitter? Not likely
She's got a great husband, beautiful daughters, loving mom
With flawless makeup, and wearing a fashionable black and white summer frock, Michelle Obama showed she could hold her own when it comes to mindless chatter.
Still, she couldn't resist a sly ribbing of her critics by giving the co-hosts on "The View" a round-table "fist bump."
(AP/ABC)
But the gesture -- known as "giving dap" -- had neither the intimacy nor the cool of the one she shared with her husband the night Sen. Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination.
It was simply an opportunity for her to refute the smear first heard on Fox News Channel that the couple had shared a "terrorist fist jab."
In the months to come, we can expect to see more of "The View Michelle" as the couple tries to persuade the country to vote the first African-American couple into the White House.
During the Democratic primary, Barack Obama was subjected to scurrilous rumors. Now, his opponents are trying to use his wife as a lightning rod in the campaign.
For example, her comments about being proud to be an American for the first time in her adult life quickly became fodder in a GOP attack ad.
The latest attack involved a false claim that there is a tape of Michelle using the word "whitey" during a speech at Trinity United Church of Christ.
No such tape has surfaced.
But that didn't stop legitimate news outlets from allowing the unsubstantiated claim to enter the news stream.
"I mean 'whitey'? That's something that George Jefferson would say," Michelle told a New York Times reporter. "Anyone who says that don't know me."
I doubt that an unsubstantiated allegation that Cindy McCain used the N-word during a rant would have been handled in the same way.
"I think the over-emphasis on Michelle Obama is truly a hidden bias against Obama," said Lee Walker, senior fellow of the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank headquartered in Chicago.
"These are personal attacks. They cannot reach him [Barack Obama], so the person they believe they can hurt the most is his wife," Walker said.
"Never in history has a candidate's wife been attacked like this," he said.
Worse yet, conservative pundits are showing an alarming ignorance about the black community.
For instance, Michelle Obama an angry black woman?
Please.
Michelle Obama bitter?
Give me a break.
What woman, black or white, who is married to a man who has been compared to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. would be bitter?
What woman, black or white, whose husband -- in less than 10 years -- goes from having the family's credit card declined at a car-rental counter to earning $4 million for two books he's written is angry?
What woman, black or white, who at 44, has an intact family, two beautiful daughters, a loving mother and an adoring god-mother, a dependable social network, who lives in a mansion in a great neighborhood, would feel anything but blessed?
No. This is angry:
The black woman who is stuck in a slum building in an unsafe neighborhood, she's angry.
The black woman who is dragging her baby's daddy to court once a month trying to get child support, she's angry.
The black woman who has to rob Peter to pay Paul and still can't pay the gas bill, she's angry.
No one's life is perfect, but the Obamas are living the American Dream.
So, it is ridiculous that the mouthpieces for the GOP are having such an easy go of it trying to stereotype Michelle as an angry black woman.
That's what it means when conservative columnist Michelle Malkin is comfortable calling Michelle Barack's "bitter half," and when the conservative National Review labels her Mrs. Grievance.
What's next? Michelle doing a neck roll with a hand on her hip?
Successful black women don't have to walk around grinning all the time to assure white people that they are happy they aren't on food stamps.
Michelle Obama has paid her dues by getting a first-rate education, marrying the right man, and making the best choices in her life.
Asking her to skin and grin is asking too much.
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Live chat with Mary Mitchell coming Tuesday at 3 p.m.