Sometimes I think our political discourse cannot sink any lower. I know, I know...But then, on special days like today, I'm reminded how crucial it is not to underestimate our cable news talking heads.
Friday's topic of such great importance that it was given prominent play on both Tucker and Hardball? A quote Michelle Obama gave to Glamor magazine, in which she said the couple's two daughters like to climb into bed with their parents in the mornings, if their daddy isn't too "snore-y or stinky."
Apparently, in listening to Tucker Carlson, Chris Matthews, and an assortment of pundits, this, rather than being a lighthearted bit of girl-to-girl frothiness in a fashion magazine, is the worst, most damaging statement ever uttered by a candidate's spouse in the history of a campaign.
It seemed like Chris Matthews' head was going to explode as he asked, again and again, "What is Michelle Obama trying to do?" There was rampant speculation that she was trying to knock her husband off his pedestal. Matthews repeated several times, the "old saying" that "behind every great man is a woman...trying to kill him." Much chuckling was heard.
I find this incredibly disturbing on two different levels. The first, most obvious one is simply that this is what passes for campaign punditry? That somehow, Michelle Obama's little bit of humorous candidate-humanizing in a lightweight magazine is made to appear to be some type of gaffe, or worse, an intentional jab at her husband? I'm sorry, but I just don't believe we're quite so easily shocked these days as to lose faith in a candidate because he snores and wakes up smelling less than lemon fresh.
That leads to the second, more disturbing part of this whole discussion, the suggestion that Ms. Obama had made the comment as a mean-spirited personal swipe because she's...envious of her husband? Generally a bitch?
Both Matthews and Carlson commented on the fact that Michelle Obama has made numerous comments about the Senator's being only human, not the demi-god some have made him out to be. And I don't see anything wrong with comments like those, or like this one, silly as it is. But what the undercurrent of this discussion seemed to be on these shows was that Michelle Obama was making these comments to show her husband she was the boss, that she was some sort of heavy-handed, controlling ball-breaker. They talked about Elizabeth Edwards and Bill Clinton, and how you'd never hear them say anything negative about their respective spouses. Why, just imagine the way America would lose faith in Hillary if they realized she woke up with her hair less than perfectly coiffed! Or how we'd all turn away from John Edwards the candidate if we realized he woke up...without his hair perfectly coiffed!
And I just can't help but feel there is some racism in this whole discussion too; that, rather than seeing comments like these as a way a candidate's family jokes to stay sane throughout an insane process, in this case, there has to be some sort of nasty, controlling motive ascribed to the woman, and I think it may be even more exaggerated because she is a black woman, who pundits want to classify as trying to take her man down a notch. There's just all sorts of troubling history that runs through my mind when I hear this sort of thing -- I could practically see terms like "uppity" and "doesn't know her place" in thought bubbles above Matthews' head.
So, to make a short story long and unsurprising, I spent my day off being shocked and saddened, once again, by the level of sexism, racism, and general idiocy that permeates our "news." Barack Obama sweats, snores, and passes gas. The horror. He may as well announce he's dropping out today.