Monday, August 25, 2008

Michelle Obama and the WOW Factor: Is She TOO Intelligent?

O.K., most of us (I'm including Republicans and Christofascists in this too) agree that Michelle Obama is not just a good speaker, but a GREAT speaker. As a consequence, however, her intelligence, came through as well. The American public has long had a love/hate relationship with very intelligent people: they are keenly suspicious of them. Intelligent people (and intellectuals - a slight difference there) are set aside by their intelligence - or, rather, set ABOVE others in their intelligence. One of the reasons we have such a dimwit of a president is that people thought that Al Gore was too intelligent for them. Bush's (fake) folksy stance seemed more familiar. The guy's been trying to channel Will Rogers now for eight years. It's a good thing Will is dead, or he wouldn't take kindly to the insult. It's correct to say that Michelle Obama won many, many African-American hearts (and voters) because she addressed 50% of the speech to them - in a positive way. So far, the Obama campaign has been at least 75% positive. That might change. Let's hope not. McCain has run some very negative ads and here's what he said tonight on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno:

McCain: Look, we all don’t like negative ads. I thought the ads we put up were an attempt to be humorous — and I thought they were very funny — and also differentiate between Sen. Obama. I think that the tone of this campaign is very rough, I think we all agree

HUMOROUS? Senator McCain, humor in a presidential campaign cannot be handled lightly. Mark Twain told us that the most effective weapon in the world is humor. Treating a serious situation (like the election of a president) with humor smacks of carelessness - like a kid playing with matches or knives. And I haven't yet run across anyone who thought your campaign ads were funny. Paris Hilton certainly didn't appreciate one, because it belittled her. And she shot back - with real humor, and a great amount of style.

Michelle Obama has style as well, but it's a style comfortable with intelligence: graduate of Princeton, Juris Doctor from Harward Law School, Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago, 58th of "The Harvard 100," a list of the prior year's most influential Harvard alumni (Her husband was listed as #4)

Jennifer Hunter of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote about one speech of hers in Iowa,

"Michelle was a firebrand, expressing a determined passion for her husband's campaign, talking straight from the heart with eloquence and intelligence."

Again, the "I" word.

God, this is going to be a frustrating race!

Just a thought.

Watch this video about how FOX "News" treats Michelle Obama. They must really despise her intelligence.