nimh wrote:nappyheadedhohoho wrote:Peggy Noonan: Do the Obamas understand America?
Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America? [..] Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised--so raised in the liberal cocoon--that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think? And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?
Ah yes, those cosseted yuppies. The Obama's in their snobbish ivory tower - Michelle, that daughter of a city water plant employee and a secretary at Spiegel's catalog store, who grew up in Chicago's South Shore. Barack, who spent years working as community organizer in Chicago, helping low-income residents in public housing developments. And Bill Clinton, that son of a a traveling salesman, who was raised by his alcoholic, abusive step father, who ran an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother. Children of privilege! How would they know what regular Americans go through, or feel like!
No, then the Republicans. Salt of the earth, they are. In touch with the innermost sentiments of the struggling, American working families. Here, Mitt Romney, that son of a Governor and a Senator, who was named "Willard" after hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott. Went straight from graduating from Harvard to a private equity career that left him with a net worth of $250-500 million. Or Bush, the son of a President, who entered the oil industry after graduating from Harvard, spending his years as chief executive officer before being elected Governor.
Or John McCain, there's a guy who is really aware of what and how normal Americans think! No cossetted yuppie existence for him, in those 26 years he has now spent on end as a US Representative or Senator in the halls of Congress. He may be 72, but his mind is sharp as a tick, and he can better remember what it was like living as a regular, less supremely privileged American twentyseven years ago than Obama can remember his much more recent years outside the hallowed halls of national politics!
Peggy Noonan -
silliness embodied.
Chicago's South Shore in the 60's was one of Chicago's most prestigious neighborhoods. Michelle's family may have been "poor" according to the mean income in that area, but they weren't 'poor' by your and my standards. She was admitted to Princeton and then Harvard indicating a pretty darn good education and having some money to boot. At the time she was commenting on it taking so long to pay off her and Barack's student loans, she was earning more than $200,000/year. That hardly makes those student loans much of a hardship don't you think?
Likewise Bill Clinton claiming to be a 'disadvantaged youth' which, speaking from experience, any child growing up in an alcoholic/abusive home is, was not disadvantaged for any lack of funds or opportunities. He also had all the money he needed to do pretty much anything he aspired to do.
There isn't a thing wrong with any of this. But it does sound condescending to those of us who couldn't afford to live on the Chicago South Shore or send our kids to Princeton or Harvard and who really did struggle to pay off student loans and who make do on ordinary people's incomes.
It is far more honest to admit that one is a child of privilege and to come from the position of being blessed and wanting the same blessings for others. Actually Michelle Obama has pretty much done just that, and I think she should be commended for it.
