CNN not only plays race card for Michelle Obama, it rewrites history
In an effort to make Michelle Obama look like a cross between Mother Teresa and Joan of Arc, CNN.com played a bit fast and loose with facts. Heck, they even made some up.
First ladies have come under fire for everything from their words to their choice of clothes and china. But Obama’s role as the nation’s first African-American first lady adds a racial layer to the microscopic scrutiny her predecessors endured.
Some of the criticism may be driven by partisan politics. But others say the attacks are rooted in white resentment of the “uppity Negro.” They say there is no precedent for a Michelle Obama: a wealthy, independent black woman representing America who is not an entertainer.
In an effort to make Michelle Obama look like a cross between Mother Teresa and Joan of Arc, CNN.com played a bit fast and loose with facts. Heck, they even made some up.
Saint Michelle of Chicago, patron saint of MSNBC
In other words, America’s racist honkies would be fine with Wanda Sykes as First Lady.
Well, that’s an opinion and CNN is entitled to theirs, whether it’s adoring Michelle’s “toned, athletic arms” or believing that “Mrs. Obama’s youthfulness and glamour may seem dissonant with the public’s image of what a first lady looks like, particularly in the minds of older members of society.”
But then CNN gets a little “creative” with the facts by saying that Michelle’s independence “…is a big part of her story. She is a self-made woman who rose from a working-class background to become an Ivy League grad and hospital administrator who made good money, all before she met her husband.”
Really? The Obama’s got married in 1992. Michelle began working for the University of Chicago in 1996, but didn’t join the medical center until 2004. Her biography says, “In 1996, she joined the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services, and established its first community service program. In 2002, she was named the University of Chicago Hospitals’ executive director of community and external affairs.”
She did, in fact, make good money at University of Chicago Medical Center, but only after newly-minted Senator Barack Obama steered over a million dollars in earmarks to the hospital. That’s when Michelle received her promotion and a pay raise of over $200,000 a year.
That, of course, isn’t the only incident from Michelle’s past that doesn’t pass the test of sainthood. There are the stories of a patient dumping scheme called the “Urban Health Initiative”, run by Michelle and her good friend Valerie Jarrett, that allegedly denied treatment to uninsured poor people and shipped them of to other Chicago area hospitals. But what the hey, they did provide a free shuttle bus.
Someone had to put a positive spin on this program, lest Michelle look less like savior and more like an elitist. But who? Who could possibly make such a program look more palatable?
The Chicago Sun-Times says, “Obama’s top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program — called the Urban Health Initiative — to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. Obama’s wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center’s board, backed the Axelrod firm’s hiring, hospital officials said.”
So contrary to what CNN.com would have you believe, our First Lady is neither Mother Teresa nor Joan of Arc. But we do agree with them on one thing:
