I don’t know if she said it, or something like it, but given her past statements, it does sound like something she’d say.

I agree it’s not a big deal at a rational level, but it is kinda a big deal at an emotional one. Think about most Americans. Most Americans work from paycheck to paycheck. They worry about how they’re going to get their kids to college. They wish they were able to afford a better vacation (or any at all), or a better car, or a house in a nicer neighborhood, etc.

Then comes along the 1st Lady, who lives in a mansion that those same people were kind enough to let her live in, rent free, for four years. She gets driven around in limos, helicopters and private planes. She gets a paycheck and a staff for doing whatever she wants to do. She seems to go on vacation every other week. And most Americans don’t understand how or why she’s complaining about her life. “Heck,” they say, “she asked for the job!”

You’re right. She doesn’t get a salary. She has a budget for her “Office of the First Lady,” including salaries for her staff, and benefits from all the accoutrements of her husband’s office. With book deals and future speaking engagements, the office will prove to be very lucrative.

She did ask for the job. She campaigned incessantly for her husband to get it. She said she had never been proud of America until they nominated her husband. I don’t think anybody coerced her into doing any of that.

You beat me to this, David. I listened to Laura Ingram on the way home (I have it set to talk radio because I usually get off at 11:30 and I like to scare myself to death with the creepy guys talking about vampires and aliens) and I got so mad. Ingram castigated Michelle for saying her husband was at risk for being shot at a gas station because he’s black. Well, hello, where has Laura Ingram been all her life? Black men still get killed every day–agreed, often by other black men—but life is dangerous for black men in America!

I would hate being first lady—it does sound from hell! She’s a human being and she gets to have feelings. Sorry, Jota, but getting up every day with the enormous pressure she’s under can’t be mitigated by dollars and cents. And it sounds like she may have made a comment under the expectation of privacy. She gets to have a life and in that life she gets to express frustration to somebody she thought was a friend.

She’s always getting flack from the right about her statement about being proud of this country for the first time. I’ve been discriminated against for various reasons—being a divorced woman in Utah, for instance. But I’ve never had anybody hate me on sight because of the color of my skin. Black children experience that before they go to kindergarten. I think I have an idea where she was coming from. If we embrace all the hysteria about Obama being a Muslim bent on destroying this country and Michelle’s a partner in that, the response to her comment could be warranted. But we need to wake up and realize that baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet aren’t everyone’s experience. To live for years under the yoke of discrimination will create resentment. Do we expect that our presidents and their wives only reflect one way of life—one way of thinking?

If so, then we should only have presidents who are white, male, in their 50′s, happily married, Christian, and who’ve never made a mistake in their lives. Obama is the first. The increasing diversity of our population overrules this. You can love something and resent it. I’m a walking example of this, being a Mormon maverik (Laurel Thather Ulrich’s words, not mine) who believes in and loves the gospel while chafing under the checklist.

I never listen to Laura Ingram; when I get off early and start my car and her voice comes on, I change the station. Shrill, that moral outrage clangs harshly with all the products she hypes while attempting to appear patriotic. More and more, I wonder how much her bread and butter is tied to a personna. And there’s no altruism or real conviction involved.

But—-you know what? If Laura Bush had said that, the Democrats would be doing exactly what they’re angry at the Republicans for doing now. The hypocrisy of both parties just blows my mind.

DKL,

When Obama steps down, can Michelle stay?

When you’re running on a platform of obstinacy and thinly veiled racism being able to attack the First Lady for something she might have said counts as substance.

Who has really relished the role of First Lady recently anyhow? Maybe Hillary, but we all know she would have rather the roles were switched and I’m guessing she doesn’t look back on that period fondly. I would guess that Nancy Reagan was the last First Lady we had that loved being First Lady.

I could not have said it better myself – annegb. I don’t care who you are, sometimes you need to vent to someone in confidence – and in this case that confidence was violated.

DKL, I agree with you on this one, though I understand your position that the existence of the caps lock key is a reason her husband needs to be impeached. Don’t agree on that one, though I’m working it into a short story.

14, If you’re going to make a comment like that, you have to elaborate.