CAPITOL IDEAS: A Preference for Michelle and Barack?
Bethell, Tom
c a P I T o L I D e a s A Preference for Michelle and Barack? by Tom Bethell If there’s one thing I’m not looking forward to, it’s Michelle in the East Wing. That’s where the First Lady...
...I don’t think he could have been admitted to Harvard Law as part of a quota...
...Would I be okay with that...
...First, Stephanopoulos reminded Obama of their recommend changing affirmative action policies so that affluent African Americans are not given advantages, and poor, less affluent whites are...
...Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama conveys the impression that she is a very superior type of person...
...Regally tall, stunning and city-chic in a triple strand of pearls atop her country casual outfit, she manages to look as down to earth as any other soccer mom and as glamorous as a model...
...By then she was earning $275,000 a year as a University of Chicago hospital administrator...
...So, as president, how specifically would you Barack Obama preaches unity...
...This was a big retrograde step in American legal history, undermining the sovereign principle of equality before the law...
...You’d think that, as the candidate who promises to transcend race, etc., reporters would have pressed him on that, but they haven’t...
...Was she an affirmative-action admission...
...List ed as one of the ten best-dressed women in the world, she’s up at 4:30 a.m., pounding away on her exercise machine...
...Michelle wondered...
...In the end she gave her regal nod...
...Raising doubts about them is unprogressive...
...Here’s my question for Michelle...
...They realize that it subjects them all to the equal suspicion 4 2 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R J u n e 2 0 0 8 T o M B e T H e L L that they were promoted on the basis of their race rather than their merit...
...Think Jackie to JFK: “How is this going to work for me...
...Smart as a whip, they say...
...John Rosenberg (find him online at www...
...But how would we know...
...But if she was admitted under a quota, when most of her classmates made it under their own steam, that could explain why she felt she “didn’t really belong...
...And for that reason, racial preferences really do rankle with some blacks who are confident that they could have made it without any help...
...Two wrongs don’t make a right...
...No matter how liberal and open-minded some of her “white professors” and classmates tried to be, she wrote, “I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus, as if I really don’t belong...
...Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition...
...We need to change the game because the game is broken...
...It is that white children—kids—should get special considerblacks “are useful to the degree that they can provide ation, affirmative action...
...The article actually quoted a year-old response that Obama had given to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, and added, “When asked about [Obama’s] position, the campaign pointed to his previous statements on the subject, in which he has defended [affirmative action] in broad terms...
...Blacks can’t be expected to make it on their own...
...But maybe we’re going to have to change that and talk about the First Spouse...
...Cindy in the East Wing...
...diversity’ to others...
...Yet it is plainly wrong and has been ever since the courts gave it the green light in the Bakke case (1978...
...She had to know: “How is this going to work for me...
...Also comedy potential...
...When she applied to Princeton, friends were skeptical...
...We don’t have time to wait...
...But does he understand how divisive affirmative action is...
...I scoured the web but could find few signs that journalists had questioned him directly about his position...
...J u n e 2 0 0 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R 4 3...
...We need big change—not just shifting of power among insiders...
...Maybe I’ll settle for that...
...Then she was admitted to Harvard Law...
...And once again, it was Stephanopoulos who asked the question...
...In her case, the suspicion is that someone who never did suffer any discrimination finds it convenient now to masquerade as a victim...
...That way reporters might be able to get a handle on the issue...
...Claiming that she’s smart doesn’t help...
...Still, how can we know for sure...
...So, he concluded, “I still believe in affirmative action as a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination...
...I think it was the first time that any journalist this year has asked Obama point-blank for his views...
...Not in 8 or 12 years but right now...
...It should, too, because collegegrad Obama supporters are its biggest fans...
...Her brother is the new basketball coach at Oregon State...
...A system that favors those with accredited victim status is bound to foster doubt and cynicism...
...That is what some will wonder today...
...And he might...
...discriminations.us) told me in an e-mail that he has been “curious for a long time about why the mainstream press has shown so little curiosity regarding Obama’s waffling on race preferences...
...How about that Michelle then...
...In fact, he suggested expanding the program to include poor whites...
...Throughout all those campaign debates, apparently, the subject never came up...
...When Barack Obama told her of his presidential ambitions, she recalled, “We had to talk about it...
...In April, Newsweek published an article head lined: “All sides of the affirmative action debate think Barack Obama agrees with them...
...The problem is that reporters think that race preferences are set in stone...
...That’s where the First Lady has her office...
...Mark Steyn (in National Review) quotes her as saying that they told her, “You can’t go there, your test scores aren’t high enough...
...Could he...
...Michelle was wafted into Princeton, where a senior thesis is required...
...That’s from Vanity Fair...
...With his senator’s salary, plus royalties and investments, they were in the million-a-year bracket...
...But in the end he dismissed this as grumbling by “conservative commentators” who downplay “legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism...
...Then it did...
...by Tom Bethell If there’s one thing I’m not looking forward to, it’s Michelle in the East Wing...
...Plus he became president of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude...
...So, maybe someone should ask Barack and Michelle why they support a government program from which they seem to have benefited personally...
...Obama’s answer was lengthy and evasive, but he said that race “is still a factor in our society,” and that it is something that “can be” taken into account...
...J o o p t a h t d n , e g e l ol c o t y pl p a y e h t en h w d e g a t n a v a d n i h e b ” e s i m e p a t n e m u t s n i y l v i s n e f f “ o o n all th e is called r Discrim l ina r tions, n otes the d d aughters should probably be treat a ed as pretty r u o y e i l s n a i r e m A a i r f A t n e u fl a t a h t e m t ohn rosenberg, who runs an excellent blog p i revious c on f versation, in c M n ay 2007...
...I could live with that, even if it has déjà vu written all over it...
...Can they...
...The whole subject of affirmative action makes the media nervous...
...These resentments…have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation...
...A year later she told Vanity Fair that she was desperate for change—now...
...Again, a case of racial preference...
...Obama was asked directly about affirmative action in that much criticized, allegedly “substance free” ABC debate on April 16...
...Her father was a Chicago city water employee and a Democratic precinct captain...
...c “You sa k id at the r affirmative action that we do not often hear...
...A lot of smart people apply to Princeton and don’t get in...
...I do have a question for her, but first some background...
...Apparently he has the subject to himself...
...c a P I T o L I D e a s A Preference for Michelle and Barack...
...The racial spoils system taints him, too...
...She’s a big player in the diversity racket...
...Amazing...
...Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator...
...For her...
...Take Barack Obama himself...
...Couldn’t they have asked him directly...
...So, how about Bill in the East Wing...
...It was clear in these remarks that Obama, while feinting in the opposite direction, was sticking to the old race-preference agenda...
...In his race speech in Philadelphia he did acknowledge the “anger that exists within segments of the white community,” when “people hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed...
...No change seemed likely from Obama...
...Hers, inevitably, was about the “racial divide” she encountered at Princeton, which (she wrote) is “infamous for being racially the most conservative of the Ivy League universities...
...Maybe she didn’t really need any legal preferment...
Vol. 41 • June 2008 • No. 5
