PLANK SEPTEMBER 5, 2012
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The speech the First Lady delivered last night in Charlotte elevated motherly grace and concern into a force of political action. But Mrs. Obama didn’t simply earn the title “mom-in-chief” overnight. Crafting her role as America’s mater familias has taken time, a smart P.R. strategy, and a lot of hugs. (A gushing letter of support from new mother and certifiable pop goddess Beyoncé didn’t hurt, either.)
In the last few weeks in particular, Michelle has been on a soft-media campaign blitz, granting full access to such paragons of hard-hitting journalism as Ladies Home Journal, Entertainment Tonight, and the Sunday-edition magazine Parade. Speaking to Parade, the First Couple fielded questions about Congressional gridlock, their marital quarrels and the pangs of a temporarily empty nest. (Michelle related the President’s feelings about his kids going to sleep-away camp thus: “What [Barack] said this morning is that life is less sparkly and twinkly with them not around.”)
But there’s something even fluffier in the wings: An exclusive Michelle Obama interview in the dog enthusiast magazine Bark. If this interview were a breed of canine, it might be classified as a poofy Pomeranian—three softball questions about the Obama’s relationship with their Portuguese Water Dog Bo, and three on-message responses offering few revealing personal or policy details. Here’s a sneak peek of the September/October issue special:
Q: Many studies have looked at the health and social benefits to dog ownership, including that walking with a dog increases the time spent in that activity and the degree of commitment to it, have you seen evidence of this in your own family?
A: Bo has been such a positive addition for our family. I think of him as my third child because we all love him so much. Whether we’re teaching him how to roll over, swimming with him in the summer, or watching him greet kids who are visiting the White House, he constantly keeps us smiling.
D’awww.
Excuse my disappointment, as a big fan of both puppies and our First Lady, but the most interesting thing to me about this interview was the salacious, Cosmo-style cover line—“EXCLUSIVE: MICHELLE OBAMA TELLS US WHO BO SLEEPS WITH.” (Alas, Bo is chasing no one’s tail but his own, it seems, at least in this PG-rated interview.)
Of course, I understand the political logic underlying this kind of interview: Any exposure that presents the First Family as more relatable than the notoriously stiff Romneys is a political boon for Obama. (As is anything that triggers memories of Mitt Romney’s history with dogs.) Who knows, maybe dog lovers are a previously unrecognized bloc of swing voters.
But from a First Lady who has always seemed her husband’s match when it comes to political prowess, it’s hard not to recognize the Bark interview (hitting newsstands this week!) as a new low. I wasn’t expecting a tell-all, but a tell-something would have been refreshing.
10 comments
Yes Rachel, but in what may come as a surprise to many in the political commentary business, an awful lot of us out here live 90% of our lives not wrapped around a policy axle, but engaged in the timeless, day-to-day activities of getting on with life - and that's true even of extremely talented people like Michelle Obama. I think a little focus on the human side of life is just fine, thank you, in other words.
- IowaBeauty
September 5, 2012 at 12:44pm
WHAT? This is a low and mean-spirited attack on a great lady but also, on the very fabric of life itself. My goodness madam what planet are you from? Without our animals, our beloved mates and children or students, we have absolutely nothing. Nothing. And, as Americans, the Democratic message of inclusiveness highlights this sense of community, that we ALL belong. Without that community we have no country, period.
- Sophia
September 5, 2012 at 12:56pm
Really? Ann Romney gives a speech which is a celebration of staying home and raising kids, avoiding mentioning Dressage Horses, multiple Cadillacs, car elevators, living off $60,000 in stock redemptions going to school. And after that, you choose to criticize Michelle's "fluffy" speech? Well I guess I appreciate you not bending over to praise Michelle, but I do seem to hear a double-standard going on here. So Democratic women are supposed to downplay how "family" they are, and play-up how "professional" they are, despite how many times they've already said that? Meanwhile, Republican women are supposed to be sugar-and-spice and everything-nice without criticism?
- AllanL5
September 5, 2012 at 1:03pm
I'm not sure I understand the hostility towards the First Lady, doing what first ladies of the US have done since time out of mind, only doing it much better. But props for the "Alas, Bo is chasing no one’s tail but his own, it seems". That was clever and funny, even if it was wrapped in a fairly dumb post.
- Tristan
September 5, 2012 at 1:15pm
Allan.... Don't you know that all GOP women are either bitter pinched face spinsters ala Ann Coulter or stay-at-home Stepford wives with no careers other than to be good wives and mothers. Being self-sufficient and self-aware is just plain "modern". Whereas, modern, liberal power-moms like Michelle not only are capable of running the world in between middle-school plays, planting a garden, visiting the troops, enjoying her dog and yes...having meaningful policy discussions about school lunch programs. Quite frankly, I thought Michelle hit a grand slam on her speech last night, and her interviews with the staple readings of every woman in America - I mean interviews with Cosmo, Parade and Bark further illustrates why the Obamas have a better chance of relating to the average American. The only constituency magazine Michelle hasn't interviewed with is Reader's Digest. Michelle has done an excellent job of continuing to remind voters that Barack is, yes, human, American, a loving husband and father, and yes...a dog person. No amount of Ann Romney can humanize Mitt-bot-2000 version 65.52. I mean, can we expect the Romneys to board their dressage horses on the North Lawn? I can't see how that makes the Romneys even the least bit relatable to the average American. How do you relate to someone who gets a tax write-off for a horse that is worth more than what 90% of Americans earn in a year?
- singlspeed
September 5, 2012 at 1:28pm
BREAKING NEWS: Politicians and their wives do their best to come across as human, using soft magazine pieces in the process. MORE BREAKING NEWS: The Obamas are duplicating this tactic in the midst of an ongoing right-wing campaign to depict them as somehow not quite American. Without this illuminating piece, I doubt that these developments ever would have occurred to me or to other TNR readers.
- Thunderroad
September 5, 2012 at 1:39pm
WTF? I might agree with the above comments; I might even disagree; if, that is, I understood what the post was about. Seriously, though - what is "shameless" about showcasing your dog? Or talking about your family life? Or, for that matter, promoting yourself? I mean, the tub-o-lard drug-addled Limbaugh making fun of Mrs Obama's booty is shameless; Ramesh Ponnuro saying "elect a Republican or else we will hit MelGibsoninLethalWeapon-level mad" is shameless; Ryan talking about "the weak among us" is shameless; and the list goes on. "Soft campaign by a First Lady"? Wagging her dog around in public like that; the shameless hussy. Where are my smelling salts?
- icarus-r
September 5, 2012 at 1:48pm
OK I have cooled down a little and would like to apologize for sounding like a b****, although I am one as a general rule and certain Really Really Dumb Stuff brings out the worst in me. The more important point is this: we all have accomplishments, hopefully, and there's no doubt that women are just as capable and talented as men. However, the GOP message is that "success" is EVERYTHING, success as they define it, which is "money" and its corollary, power, and they forget or demean the role of "little people," real people, and government, which really IS people and OUR money, in THEIR success. Of course they say they built it all by themselves, which is baloney. Michelle Obama's speech along with many others during the night pointed up the importance of others in our personal success and also the fact that being aware of and concerned for others is critical and it's also lacking in the GOP vision unless you happen to belong to the "right" church and/or are a zygote. Stacy Linn, whose daughter has a heart defect, spoke on the ACA and its vital importance to her family. Although one would have assumed the Right would be able to personalize and empathize and actually see little sick children or hungry and dying old and poor people in their mind's eye, alas, such doesn't appear to be the case. Showing an actual American family with a sick child makes it crystal clear how important political policy is in people's real lives. Ditto, Tammy Duckworth, who showed the terrible price of courage and war; the other eloquent speakers who showed us in terms even a right winger SHOULD be able to understand, how important it is to help each other, not to force people to fend for themselves, not to create a terrible, bleak, Randian landscape in which only those red and tooth and claw will survive. Deval Patrick spoke about the impact of government - bad and good - on the state of Massachusetts. Public policy impacts real people. They are of a piece, we are all interconnected, and Michelle Obama in particular made that resonantly and crystal clear. Accomplishments are to be sought, there's no doubt about that. But, the best dancer in the world is nothing without an audience to watch her. She can't work without music, she can't perform without a costume, she can't get to a gig without transportation - on a bus, a train, driving on a public highway. The best politician in the world is nothing without people to listen to her, to vote for her ideas and help implement them in the real world. Without good teachers, parents who care, a social system that works for everybody, no child can succeed. The greatest engineer or computer designer in the world can't survive without people to buy her products and she can't learn how to do that in the first place without a matrix of social and political and commercial constructs from her mother to her professors to her boss, to the consumers who buy her stuff, period. Mark Zuckerberg alone in the desert is a guy in the desert, not an innovative billionaire, period. Without the vision to see all those "besides me me me" factors, we're all blind and ineffectual. The Republicans seem to have forgotten this. The Democrats wrongly assumed that the Republicans would understand "sick children are dying for lack of health care," but when people were asked at a Republican primary if they'd allow people to die for lack of health insurance PEOPLE CHEERED. There's nothing "soft" or "shameless" about reminding people what's a stake here. What's at stake is life itself, the ability to do our work, to get to our work, to have a whole heart when our own can no longer beat for itself.
- Sophia
September 5, 2012 at 1:48pm
Sophia, there's more: people didn't only cheer for a "let 'em die" proposition at a GOP primary rally -- at another, they jeered a soldier serving in a combat zone who declared that he was gay, and they jeered a speaker (a Republican!) from Puerto Rico at the convention. Ver-y nayce, as Borat would say.
- ironyroad
September 5, 2012 at 2:16pm
Rachel Wiseman must be an intern as Michell Obama's speech went over her head.
- NR111368
September 5, 2012 at 7:00pm