On the Michelle Obama Controversy and the Politics of Personal Destruction

February 20, 2008 
Category: Analyses & Opinions

For the first time since declaring his candidacy for president of the United States, Barack Obama and his campaign found themselves faced with a dual controversy that threatened to siphon the wind from under the wings of the incredible momentum that was carrying Obama to a possible victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

But, for close to 72 hours before the voting began, the prospect of victory in Wisconsin suddenly grew bleak as the Clinton campaign and the media launched an overwhelming barrage of negative publicity around Barack Obama’s alleged plagiarism of a passage from a 2006 speech by his friend Deval Patrick, and the apparent “gaffe” committed by Michelle Obama in a speech on Monday in which she said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”

The three days before the voting in Wisconsin were not good days for Obama, and certainly not what he wanted to see happening so close to the Wisconsin primaries. In the space of 72 hours, he and his wife had committed, back to back, the very first noticeable “blunders” of their campaign, and it seemed the honeymoon between the media and the Obamas had finally come to an end. And Hillary Clinton was relishing the moment.

Luckily for the Obama campaign, Michelle’s statement, which became the most quoted sentence of the week after combining with Barack Obama’s own troubles regarding the plagiarism charge, did not cost them the victory in Wisconsin. The seventy-two-hour barrage of negative reports that preceded the Wisconsin primary did not appear to have been enough to break the momentum Obama got from his Potomac victories. He won Wisconsin by a substantial margin (58% vs. 41%).

While the plagiarism charge laid against Barack Obama may have had some leg to it when considered outside of the reality of the senator’s political and personal affinity with Deval Patrick, the whole brouhaha about Michelle Obama’s statement is a whole lot more surprising, and less logical. It almost appears as though, not having been able to find anything compromising about Barack Obama so far, the Clinton campaign and the media have decided to resort to parsing and scrutinizing the Obama family’s slightest missteps and mishaps.

Politicians have always been known to be plagiarists. But because they are not running for Ph. D., candidates found guilty of political plagiarism have often gotten away with it, except in very rare instances such as in 1987 when Joe Biden’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was compromised after it was discovered he had borrowed passages from speeches by a British politician named Neil Kinnock. Standards of, and demands for, originality are often looser in political circles and practice than they are in a classroom. This is not to say that the incriminated passage in Barack Obama’s Saturday speech did not constitute plagiarism. Technically, it was. But Barack Obama had the excuse of having been a close friend of Deval Patrick’s, and both have publically confirmed having supported each other during their campaigns, and helped each other with ideas and suggestions for political speeches and strategy since, at least, 2006 when Deval Patrick was running for the office of Governor of Massachusetts.

Barack Obama himself has acknowledged that it was in bad taste as well as a mistake not to have made it more obvious in his speech that the passage was being inspired by a similar argument made by his friend two years earlier as he battled an incumbent governor who had used the same “just words” argument against him as Hillary Clinton is doing against Obama today. However, where other politicians, including Hillary Clinton herself, have notoriously been shown to have borrowed expressions, slogans and ideas from current and previous campaigns, it seems this luxury was not afforded to Obama, and rightly so. Obama is a highly original speaker and his speeches, some day, will rank among the greatest every pronounced by an American politician. He certainly did not need the controversy and could have used the proper crediting procedures.

It is certain that being a perceived frontrunner is bound to bring more scrutiny, and also more negative coverage on the part of those who would like to see Obama stumble, even if just for the fun of it. The opportunity to finally stop his momentum looked too good to the media and, above all, to the Clinton camp which has never appreciated Obama’s honeymoon with the media. It had already lasted too long, they seem to have been thinking. But this is politics and Barack Obama must accept it for what it is. That is how the political game is played and he must ready himself for the mud that will come flying his way from the Republican side should he win the Democratic nomination.  It has, in fact, already begun if one is to go by the nasty attacks that were launched against him and Michelle on Tuesday by John McCain and his wife.

The situation, however, is different when it comes to Michelle Obama per se. She is not a politician and does not like politics because, precisely, of its potential for nastiness. The only reason she is in politics is because her husband is in politics. Yet, more than anyone else, she deserves credit for having been rather disciplined, having committed far less gaffes in the course of this campaign than experienced politicians such as Hillary Clinton herself or her husband. Unfortunately, Michelle’s being in the limelight of such a highly-visible candidate as Barack Obama made it such that she could no longer avoid scrutiny. Where a statement such as was made by her would have gone unnoticed in many other situations, her “gaffe” proved too tempting for the so many people who seem to have been waiting for something like that to happen. And it is very likely that if the Wisconsin primaries had been held a week from now, these controversies could have cost Obama not only the victory in Wisconsin, but also the Democratic nomination. Fortunately for him, his wins in the Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries have helped to somewhat mute the controversies ahead of a possible Obama upset in Texas or Ohio.

But was Michelle Obama’s statement really a “gaffe” as so many people would want us to believe?

It seems to me that the attacks she has been subjected to in the past forty-eight hours are not only unfair, but also based on very tenuous arguments. To use a nice metaphor, these arguments are tantamount to attempting to force an elephant down the throat of a crocodile.

Yet, Michelle Obama’s statement is very clear and makes perfect sense without being one bit unpatriotic as some have charged. When she says, “For the FIRST time in my ADULT lifetime, I’m REALLY proud of my country,” she is, in fact, using the right words, and saying something that easily explains itself on the very basis of its context. It is my opinion that most people did not take the time to think before they judged, and they thus became party to what appears to be a very disingenuous attempt at discrediting a statement that is the total opposite of what most people have come to believe it is.

Let us elaborate.

Michelle Obama was born on January 17, 1964, that is, 44 years ago. Chronologically, she became an 18-year-old adult only 26 years ago, that is, at some point during the year of 1982. While great things did happen in and outside America over the past 26 years of Michelle Obama’s ADULT lifetime, no one will dispute the fact that the possibility of Obama becoming the first black American nominee of any party, or the first black president of the United States, will be, by far, the greatest most unexpected occurrence of our lifetime, or, perhaps, the single most powerful event of the 21st century.

For some reason, those who prematurely jumped onto the bandwagon of criticism did not hesitate to extrapolate, and construe Michelle Obama’s line as meaning something it did not mean at all. They made her statement sound as though she was saying, “For my WHOLE lifetime,” or “For the WHOLE lifetime of the United States.” Obviously, there is a difference. If Michelle Obama had said, “for the FIRST time in American history,” or “for the FIRST time in my WHOLE lifetime, I am proud of my country,” the critics would have been well justified in questioning her motives. But she did not.

So, where do such unfounded criticisms come from? There is no obvious answer. Simply that, when a wildfire begins, one can never tell where it is going to end. What is clear, however, is that all those who leaped to the conclusion that Michelle Obama was being unpatriotic were wrong. They were being quite unfair in making such a harsh judgment on a woman who, without attacking anyone, was simply trying to convey the incredible emotion, momentousness and gravity of the exceptional times that we are all witnessing.

The irony here is that it is those very people who condemned her who are, in fact, to blame for their own mental and intellectual limitations. They simply did not take the time to analyze and understand the technical and rhetorical nuances of the English language as masterfully implemented by Michelle Obama in her speech. At the game of word parsing and word play, Michelle Obama probably wins big because the words she chose to use in her statement, if analyzed and understood based on their semantic and rhetorical value, would reveal a woman in full control of her language, a woman whose only guilt resides in her being more sophisticated in her speech than the very pundits who have convicted her in the court of public opinion. It is those who criticized her “gaffe” who, in reality, showed an obvious inability to grasp the nuances of the language used by Michelle Obama. They probably need to go back to school and learn their English better.

Let us offer a quick lesson in rhetoric to the pundits who have so blatantly given intentions to Michelle Obama that were never part of her statement. In Michelle Obama’s sentence, there is the adverb “really.” As used in the sentence, this adverb acts as a modulator of discourse that softens the semantic value of the words immediately before and after it, thereby lending to the sentence a very subtle undertone that completely mitigates its very absolute premise. Thus, saying, “For the FIRST time in my ADULT lifetime, I’m REALLYproud of my country,” does not at all mean that Michelle has NEVER been proud of her country. The statement cannot be construed as such. On the contrary. The keywords that help to contradict any other interpretation are the words “first” (an absolute), “adult” (a limitative), and “really” (a modulator/mitigator). What this means is that, if one takes the care to reconstruct the statement in a way that makes sense to most people, the statement would actually mean the following:

In other words, there is a difference between saying, “This is the FIRST time that I am proud of my country,” (an absolute statement), and saying, “This is the FIRST time in my ADULT lifetime that I am REALLY proud of my country” (a modulated, mitigated statement). What Michelle Obama was, therefore, saying is simply that she has never been as proud of America as she is today. What, then, transpires from her statement is what one might call the expression of an incremental pride which went from being SIMPLY, and flatly PROUD to being REALLY proud, that is, GREATLY proud, or PROUDER. She is expressing transcendence or, if you will, a transcendental experience that goes beyond words, or which words cannot easily express.

What this means is that Michelle Obama used exactly the words she should have used in the context of her speech in order to express the heightened sense of gratitude that she is feeling at this defining moment of our time, a moment that is poised to becoming one of the greatest, if not the greatest moment in American history. And since there is no universal definition of what is great about America in the eyes of all of us, many Americans can have their own definition of what is great based on their own ethnic, religious and/or cultural background. But we certainly cannot fault Michelle Obama for defining this moment as her PROUDEST, no matter what premise she decides to use as the yardstick against which to measure her incremented pride.

And this is where context suddenly becomes important. Even an absolute statement such as “this is the first time I have been proud of my country” can make perfect sense in the context of the civil rights movement where, in spite of the huge gains that have been seen, doubt remained as to the possibility of America ever electing a black person to the White House. Insofar as Obama, a black man, is poised to becoming the first black nominee of any party, and perhaps the first black president of the United States, an analysis made on the basis of the type of progress observed in the history of civil rights and racial justice in America would make sense and perfectly justify Michelle Obama’s statement.

I believe that this is, in fact, the background against which she was measuring the accomplishments of her husband, that is, his accomplishments in a new America in which the dream of Martin Luther King was finally becoming a reality. For the first time in American history indeed, a black man is being judged by his White, Asian, Hispanic fellows, not on the basis of the color of his skin, but really on the basis of the content of his character. There is truly no greater achievement for America than that of racial harmony, and, on this front, it is hard to fathom how a statement that was clearly contextualized as a statement on the progress of civil rights, hope and equality in America ended up becoming an issue about patriotism, love of country and the like, especially when, in the same speech, Michelle Obama was also saluting the opportunities that had been given her by this country, opportunities that allowed her to become the successful black woman that she is today.

In the end, it is really no fault of Michelle Obama’s if the mysteries of the English language still remain unfathomable for most people, including those who love to play the pundits on radio and television shows. Ignorance can be a disease, especially when ignorance is made to pass as enlightenment. But when ignorance becomes a collective disease, it is called obscurantism. The pundits may be playing a dangerous game, and they may not even be aware of it. At a time when America is looking like it is ready to heal itself from the wounds of the past, it would be great if the experts in punditry began doing their job properly in order to become agents of enlightenment as opposed to agents of obscurity.

Fortunately, the regular American citizen has more common sense than the self-proclaimed pundits who spend their day spreading nonsensical analyses. One thing is clear: Michelle Obama seems to have a much better command of her English and the value of words than her critics. And this is why the American people have chosen to support Barack Obama. This time, they do not want to let anyone tell them how to vote and who they should vote for. Their support of Barack Obama is a clear indication that America is ready for change and no one, not even John McCain or his wife, will keep America from changing from old ways to new ways.

It is time to move away from the politics of personal destruction and start the work of lifting America up again, not down.

Dr. Daniel Mengara
The author is an Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Montclair State University (New Jersey). He is also the leader of Bongo Doit Partir (Bongo Must Go), a movement of expatriated Gabonese citizens opposed and seeking an end to the 40-year-old dictatorial regime of Omar Bongo in Gabon.

Comments

One Response to “On the Michelle Obama Controversy and the Politics of Personal Destruction”

  1. David Manquin on February 24th, 2008 8:54 pm

    oajj,. on teste

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