Why Michelle is Fair Game

A nice piece from the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby, the paper's token conservative, on why despite protests from Barack, Michelle Obama is fair game for attack in this campaign. You'll recall that early last week, on Good Morning America, Barack played the tough guy and told folks to leave Michelle alone.


Jacoby takes the opportunity to reiterate just how down on America Michelle is:

Here she is, for instance, in Wisconsin:

"Life for regular folks has gotten worse over the course of my lifetime, through Republican and Democratic administrations. It hasn't gotten much better."

And in South Carolina:

America is "just downright mean" and "guided by fear . . . We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day."

Michelle has made herself a sharp-spoken part of the campaign, and Jacoby is right to defend the rights of others to object to her characterizations:

There is also her creepily authoritarian vision of life under an Obama administration. From a speech in California:

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uninformed."

Here are two clips of Michelle and her original "For the first time in my adult life," comments. In case you haven't seen them yet.