what a wonderful and inspiring woman!
what a blessing to have her as first lady, and barack obama as president of the united states.
may they continue to walk in victory!

My wife noted that Michelle sounds a bit like Jill Scott (check her out if you don't know her) in her delivery. The cadence is quite musical and lilting. Very well done.

My coastal elitist butt got verklempt. I'm glad the cameras zoomed in all the other women iat the convention who were teary to make me feel like I was watching a Nora Ephron movie.

I think all of the "angry black woman" and "why are they letting her speak" talk from some corners of the media really worked in her favor. If you came in with those images, and really didn't know much about her, I think you came away very impressed. I thought she was fantastic.

On another note, I wish Pelosi had told Ann Curry to shut the fuck up after the 32nd question she asked about Hillary Clinton.

"on another note..."

seitz
thank goodness, caroline kennedy shlosberg just essentially did that, to wolf blitzer and gloria borger!

"On another note, I wish Pelosi had told Ann Curry to shut the fuck up after the 32nd question she asked about Hillary Clinton."

Word, word and word. I hate to take the easy way out, but if we lose this time, there is no hope for Democrats, not with a media as hopelessly biased and dysfunctional as we have in this country.

Michelle has always been a huge part of this campaign, and will only grow as she and the campaign proper shake off the malicious branding that has constrained her until now.

Whether or not this race shows it, she is and will always be his ultimate surrogate, his greatest character witness, but also his most insightful critic. She, far before the American people, took on the fundamental questions of his legitimacy- substance over style, his ambition versus his sincerity. We as a nation respect First Ladies that are intelligent, and the abject cynicism of McCain's marriage contrasted to Obama's ultimately hard won conversion of someone as sincere but cagey as Michelle to believe in him would in any other election be the foundation of an outpouring of public support.

Let's hope at least a sliver of that shines through the GOP hit team pall surrounding her.

she dispelled the GOP's whisper campaign. I am gaining more and more confidence in Obama in the last week and half.

""She just brought the crowd to its feet with an emotionally delivered "and that is why I love this country"""

Which tells you that they know they have a ig problem with her prior quotes about not being proud of the country and calling the country mean.

"She's also coming off as wholesome and, frankly, familiar"

Do you have no minority friends? Have you never been to their parents' house?

Just prior to posting this was Ezra's thought
Oh my god the scary black lady sounds like every other mother in America. How can this be?

As I watched Michelle Obama, I couldn't help thinking that this is the most an intelligent, articulate, accomplished woman can hope for in America: standing by her man.

What damn good are those 18 million cracks in the ceiling if, when push comes to shove, a woman who's an amazing person in her own right once again squeezes herself into June Cleever's shoes and helps to keep half of America in the kitchen?

"First mom": I cry.

The thing that pisses me off as a black guy to read comments like Canadian Reader's post is to realize they really don't get that there was more than one ceiling here. One of them being race. We didn't deal with gender this time. But race is just as detrimental in America as gender. So the argue is quite offensive to continually read posters such as yourself ignore this fact. I am not into identity politics, but I am also not in blindspots either.

Her relationship with her brother is a very appealing part of her as well. Still, the speech would have been helped by a bit more specificity about Barack, or them as a couple. It seemed purged of anecdote and detail.

MLK's speech was 45 years ago, Ezra; you're misquoting Michelle. Unfortunately, 40 years to the day ago, MLK had been dead for four months.

Sorry if I pissed you off akaison. Both racism and sexism are retrograde. Pointing out one does not diminish the other. I was simply not commenting on the race issue. I wasn't trying to shunt it aside.

I still, however, remain saddened to see how America requires women to fade into the cookie-baking background as a way to attract the voters of middle-America.

canadian reader

"standing by her man?"
michelle obama is standing next to her man.
michelle obama is all about
Honor and Dignity.
she commands respect for herself and her absolutely beautiful daughters.
she is Honest.
she has ALREADY cracked her own glass ceiling. she is the picture of strength and humility.
has that word been, humility, been used enough in recent times?
she IS a role model for my daughter.
i am proud and thrilled to have watched michelle obama last night....and would say to any young woman.
"i hope you can grow up to be as strong, grounded, loving, humble and wise as michelle obama."

and one more thing about michelle obama....

she is a woman who knows her own truth.
she is grounded with deep and loving roots.
it seems that at a very young age, michelle obama learned that the world was not just about her.
she is a young woman of valour.

I still, however, remain saddened to see how America requires women to fade into the cookie-baking background as a way to attract the voters of middle-America.

What about her speech and her role gives you that impression?

she is a young woman of valour.

"Young" is really pushing it I think. She's middle-aged.

"...they really don't get that there was more than one ceiling here. One of them being race. We didn't deal with gender this time. But race is just as detrimental in America as gender." - akaison

Akaison,

I thought race was always shorthand for slavery experience and the various shades of Jim Crow that followed, not skin color?

Multiple generations over hundreds of years being denied any form of human dignity does effect family relationships. And as epigenetics is making clear, high stress over long periods, negatively distorts the genome in a substantial way.

On the issue of race, many southern Indians come to the shores of the US with substantially darker skin than the majority African-Americans and yet they prosper as group far better than either blacks or Caucasians. The same has been shown for other groups as well...INCLUDING RECENT AFRICAN ARRIVALS.

If skin color by itself was the hobble how could this occur? That is not to say bigotry does not exist, it does, but it is no longer the controlling factor it once was, rather it is the internalized damages that occurred over hundreds of years and multiple generations. As you know Akaison, Barak shares nothing in common in genetics or soci-economic background to those African-Americans who have been put upon by slavery and Jim Crow and are rightfully due compensation for their families ordeal.

Now, if Barbra Jordan was still alive and running you'd have a African-American of great acomplishment...and as a bonus, a real Democratic candidate. Jordan would be a candidate I could believe in with all my head and my heart. Of course the MODERN DEMOCRATIC PARTY would not nominate such a person because she was very much in the mold of FDR & LBJ...and we can't that now can we?

And why can't Democrats promote people why have served well? Why not get experienced women who happen to be African -American?

Need an example? Try Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX-30) at least she knew to vote nay on FISA

"that is not to say that bigotry does not exist, it does, but it is no longer the controlling factor that it once was."

that is as untrue a statement as any i have ever heard.
how do you find yourself able to pontificate and quantify what the experience is an african-american person or any person of color in this country.
the color of our skin is what people see first when they look at us.
you dont know whether a person comes from eritrea, haiti or chicago when you look at them.
and how can you even imagine what it felt like for barack obama, growing up in his situation...not looking like the family that was raising him....not knowing his connections with father...but feeling them in his soul.
growing up in the united states, connected him to the whole experience of being an african~american and more.
your analysis is very blithe and simplistic, and is lacking in heart, if i may say so.

jacqueline,

Here is an example of a "very blithe and simplistic...lacking in heart" person you support.

National Organization for Women president calls for Jones' resignation after 'Uncle Tom' remark
August 25, 2008

Delmarie Cobb, standing outside Mayor Daley’s reception Sunday, is a Chicago political consultant and Clinton delegate. She says Emil Jones (inset) called her an "Uncle Tom."
(Mark Bieganski/For the Sun-Times/AP)

DENVER — The chief of Illinois’ National Organization for Women chapter today called on Barack Obama’s “political godfather” to resign immediately from the Illinois state Senate for calling an African-American Hillary Clinton delegate an “Uncle Tom.”
“That was a pretty horrible comment,” said Illinois NOW president Bonnie Grabenhofer, also a Clinton delegate, who issued the demand for Senate President Emil Jones’ resignation.
Feminists who make up the Illinois Clinton delegate contingent at the Democratic National Convention were outraged to learn of today’s exclusive Chicago Sun-Times report about Clinton delegate Delmarie Cobb’s accusation that Jones directed the racially loaded slur at her.
The flap comes at a particularly sensitive time for the Obama campaign, which is slumping in national polls and has struggled to bring Clinton delegates across the country into the fold.
“I’ve never heard anything as awful or as sexist or as racist as to call her that for supporting Hillary,” said Clinton delegate Gay Bruhn, another NOW member in Illinois who called for a public apology from Jones.
The Senate president added today to his version of what happened, saying he called Cobb a “doubting Thomas,” not an “Uncle Tom” in a Saturday night exchange in the lobby of the Denver hotel where the Illinois delegation is staying. Jones did not offer up that explanation when confronted by the Sun-Times late Sunday.
“She walked away, and I said, ‘All you doubting Thomases got to get on board.’”
Jones said Cobb turned around and demanded to know what he called her.
“I said, ‘No, that’s not so.’ And I thought, you know, it was all over with, you know? She caught the last word of what I said. You know, people make mistakes,” Jones said.
Jones, who plans to retire from his Senate post in January, made clear he has no intentions of stepping down early or apologizing to Cobb and the Clinton delegation.
“I cannot apologize for one misinterpreting what I said. That’s all I can say,” Jones said.
Told of Jones’ explanation, Cobb scoffed today and stuck by her version of the encounter.
“He knows what he said to me. He knows he called me an Uncle Tom. He’s trying to backtrack now. There’s playful jousting, and there’s stepping over the line,” she said. “He stepped over the line.”
As the embarrassing episode rippled through the Illinois delegation here, Mayor Daley, weighed in and suggested Jones simply misspoke.
“I think it’s a misuse of words. There’s no ‘Uncle Toms,’ anybody supporting Hillary, Obama. It’s just a mischoice of words,” the mayor said.
The Sun-Times was first to report today on the racially charged flap, which was witnessed by two Chicago aldermen who backed up Cobb’s account.
“Last night, I was called an ‘Uncle Tom’ by Emil Jones in the lobby of the hotel, right in front of [Ald.] Freddrenna Lyle and [Ald.] Leslie Hairston and [Ald.] Latasha Thomas,” Cobb told the Sun-Times on Sunday. “I walked over to him and asked him, 'What did you just call me?”
Lyle, alderman of the South Side’s 6th Ward, said she was standing with Jones when the conversation took place in the hotel lobby, but she dismissed it as Jones engaging in harmless banter with someone he knows, although Lyle said she told him, “Emil, that’s bad even for you.”
Another of the aldermen who was standing in the lobby added, “He said it in jest.”
Cobb is a Chicago political consultant who has played prominent roles in the presidential campaigns of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bill Bradley. She is a member of Clinton’s Illinois Steering Committee. She said she is still paying the price in the African-American community for her support of Clinton.
“If people are still making digs at the Hillary Clinton people because we supported her, that is not going to bring us on board. It makes us feel as though we're outsiders, and we're Democrats,Ó Cobb said. ÒThe litmus test for being black is [seen as] supporting Barack.Ó
Cobb said she saw Clinton supporters walking into an Illinois delegation meeting at the Marlowe Restaurant on Sunday and being handed Obama buttons, only to put the buttons in their pockets. That prompted the greeters to say, “You can tell the Hillary Clinton people, they never take the buttons.”
Speaking outside Denver's Palm Restaurant late Sunday, Jones said he never called her the name.
“I emphatically deny it," he said. “I told her I never said that. She may have misunderstood.”
Told that Lyle heard him call Cobb the name, Jones said, “That was not. That was not. That's all I have to say.”
Cobb said the confrontation started when she and Jones, who is also African-American, were talking about an earlier conversation they had at the Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago. “One day, you’ll be on the right side,” Cobb said Jones told her. She told him she was on the right side. She said Jones pointed at his Obama hat and said, “No, this is the right side,” she said.
“Then he came up behind me. He said ‘Thirty-five thousand people went to Springfield [to support Obama on Saturday],’” she said. “I said, ‘Then 35,000 people drank the Kool-Aid.,’ He said, ‘Barack is a clean-cut guy. He never liked gutter politics, that’s why the Clintons did so-and-so. ...'’ I said, ‘I don’t want to get into this. So I went over to the elevator, and he said, ‘Uncle Tom!’ Then he grabbed me and hugged me and started laughing. I said, ‘What did you say?’ I turned to Freddrenna Lyle, and I said, ‘What did he say?’ She wouldn't say anything, That’s when I said some bad things to him.”
Taking a final shot at Jones, Cobb said, “Calling me an ‘Uncle Tom’ is beyond the pale, especially considering where he is [close] with Mayor Daley and with [Gov.] Blagojevich, I am hardly the Uncle Tom here.”
Jones announced his retirement as state Senate president last week and, following an increasingly popular Chicago tradition, had his son Emil Jones III installed as the nominee to succeed him for his south suburban and South Side Senate seat. A separate battle is brewing among veteran Senate Democrats for Jones' leadership gavel.
Another strong Clinton supporter, J.B. Pritzker, who was one of the former first lady's national co-chairmen, said he expected just about all of Clinton's delegates to follow her request and — after casting their votes for her — fully support Obama.
Contributing: Lynn Sweet

brennan

the point that i was making, is that it is an act of extreme denial and hardheartedness, in my opinion, to say that bigotry is no longer a controlling factor in our society.
i dont know how anyone can make a statement like that, most especially after this election year.

jacqueline,

If you are purposely lying, to make a point, shame on you otherwise I'll just assume you've had too much Kool-Aid.

"it is an act of extreme denial and hardheartedness, in my opinion, to say that bigotry is no longer a controlling factor in our society." by: jacqueline

"that is not to say that bigotry does not exist, it does, but it is no longer [THE] controlling factor that it once was." by: S Brennan

brennan

i am not lying.
i dont drink kool aid.
and i stand by my statement that bigotry is a hugely controlling factor in the very fibers of our society.

I supported Obama all through the primaries and will continue to support him through November.

That said, Canadian reader is right about the inherent sexism of this stuff. First Lady is not an office. "Helping out her man" is the prescribed role of political wives for thousands of years of patriarchy.

The correct example is Cheri Blair. She kept right on working as a Barrister despite husband Tony's ascension to Prime Ministership. That would be unheard of in America; rather, we still expect our political wives to submit.

i dont drink kool aid.

Hey kool aid is delicious.

Mmm, kool aid.

Thanks,Dilan. You're the only one who understood my comment.

One of them being race. We didn't deal with gender this time. But race is just as detrimental in America as gender. So the argue is quite offensive to continually read posters such as yourself ignore this fact. I am not into identity politics, but I am also not in blindspots either.