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Obama is Frustrated and Angry Says Wife Michelle

Michelle is a kind of Barameter, giving voice to the things that the candidate can’t or won’t say. While he denounced Rev. Wright, she only said she agreed with Barack (”He speaks for both of us.”), and she looked distressed (as I would be if my spouse made me leave my pastor).

From a North Carolina rally, Michelle admits that Barack has something his supporters seem to think he doesn’t: ego, anger and frustration: “Barack is always thinking three steps ahead – what do we need to do to make change.” Her husband was thinking “I can’t let my ego, my anger, my frustration get in the way of the ultimate goal,” she said. “Barack has been characterised as many things that have nothing to do with who he is.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/1924872/Michelle-Obama-Barack-has-hit-boiling-point.html

Right, he has been characterized as a man without ego, anger or frustration. I don’t mind that he has these things, only that there has been this pretense that he is above all that. And after winning Guam by 7 votes (isn’t this known as a TIE?) he ought to be happier, but he predicted a blow out there. He has also been characterized as a Messiah, something Michelle also said he isn’t.

In another “hallelujiah” book by an Obama supporter, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can’t Win, Shelby Steele, an intellectual who like Obama had a white mother and black father, writes that Obama’s iconic status as an inspirational African-American also represents his biggest weakness.

Steele argues that Obama offers white voters a chance to free themselves from white guilt, but if he becomes too specific about policy or shows flashes of anger about injustice, they recoil. Obama looks “messianic” set against “the shame of America’s racial past”.

If you are an icon, he writes, “you have thoughts to touch everyone’s base, thoughts that recognise and flatter everyone. But you have few visible convictions”.

Anything that helps bring Obama down to earth serves the purpose of reminding voters that he is 1) a politician like all other politicians and 2) a man without an policies or convictions. As Steele said, it works against Obama-as-messiah for him to have any policies. 

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This entry was posted on May 4, 2008 at 1:07 pm and is filed under deeply philosophical, wisdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Obama is Frustrated and Angry Says Wife Michelle”

  1. huntingdonpost Says:
    May 4, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    I am sure he is. He has seemed it lately. No smiles, no charm. No blow out wins, even in a little place like Guam that he was supposed to take by storm. Caps closing in NC; Hillary ahead in Indiana.

    I agree with you that Michelle is a kind of negative barometer of what’s going on with Obama. She seems like a private person and very much not the political wife. She finds it hard to stay upbeat in interviews. We don’t know much about her, but I have the feeling she is really unhappy about all of this. Maybe she didn’t expect him to go this far and wasn’t counting on her life being disrupted this way. Not everybody wants to be First Lady.

  2. Chimera Says:
    May 5, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Saw another post about this today. What is up with Michelle?

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