August 26, 2008, - 5:31 pm
Oprah, Michelle Obama, The Huxtables & That Ugly Pin
By Debbie Schlussel
Okay, so I’m not the only one who noticed that every single mainstream news commentator said, last night, that the Obamas had to show the country that they’re like “The Cosby Show’s” Huxtable family . . . as if all of America is a heterogeneous group of racists who’ve never been exposed to an upper class family (which is what the Obamas are versus the middle class Huxtables) before.
But, perhaps, I am the only one who noticed that, yesterday, prior to Michelle Obama’s speech, Oprah Winfrey chose to air a re-run of her show featuring the former child actors of “The Cosby Show.” If you don’t think that was deliberate, I have some land at Harpo studios and several acres inside Oprah’s fridge to sell you.
Ugly Pin or Not, Michelle Hussein Obama . . .
I also noticed that Oprah was like the commentators in this carefully selected, carefully timed re-run. She and others remarked over and over again that Cosby was criticized by all the mainstream TV critics as not reflecting reality, because they said a middle class Black family like that of Heathcliff Huxtable didn’t reflect reality. HUH?
Just what critics on which planet was she talking about? The TV and other cultural critics almost universally (if not universally) gushed over “The Cosby Show.” Hello . . .? Sorry, but you ain’t gonna turn “The Cosby Show” and its huge success into victimhood, much as you try. Just as the commentators are somehow in the belief that no White Americans believe that Black Americans are anything but drug-dealing thugs in the inner city. It’s preposterous and its more of the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton “White-America-is-racist” victimhood, only done far more subtly and smartly.
Hmmm . . . I don’t recall the Huxtables saying they weren’t proud to be Americans or hanging out with terrorists who bombed the Pentagon. But maybe I missed those episodes.
And finally, after hearing Michelle Obama’s breathless, shouted speech, which was delivered just horribly, I couldn’t help but repeatedly wonder what the heck that ugly brooch at the center of her chest was. It looks like someone put a steel rose on top of ugly ancient whale teeth painted turquoise or teal. They keep compairing her to Jackie Kennedy in the way she dresses, but I’d say last night’s ugly brooch worn by Michelle Hussein Obama was just ugly. Just like her real views.
The brooch looks like it is going to fly out and attack someone.
The whold thing about MO has 2 motivations:
1) to counteract the (accurate) perception of her as an anti-
American elitist, and
2) more importantly, to counteract the hostility of a number of women (not only in plling data — I see it anecdotally in women I know and meet who are liberals) to BO. I noticed that BO’s defense of his wife several months ago when she was ‘under attack’ was at the same time that many women were very angry with BO for whatever the latest insult was to Hillary, I can’t even remember which insult it was that time.
This adulation of MO is meant as much as anything else to reach out to Hillary supporters, neutralize them & get their votes.
c f on August 26, 2008 at 5:51 pm