And here's a photoshop from Lance, appropriating my photograph from last night's "café" post and putting the dreamy "pioneer of the future" into Michelle Obama's dress:
(A "café" post headline on this blog signals that commenters should write about whatever they want. The sculpture is "Pioneers of the Future," by Jeffrey Barber, located on the grounds of the state capitol in Bismarck, North Dakota, dedicated in 1989, the state's centennial, and — according to the plaque — representing young people on "a path of knowledge through education that opens up unknown truths about ourselves." Also on the capitol grounds is this far superior sculpture "The Pioneer Family," depicting the pioneers of the past.)
Here's what I'd like to say the morning after the First Lady's speech. It was a typical First Lady speech, completely old fashioned, using the candidate's wife in the old-fashioned way. She's a wife and mother, and she tells you over and over how being a wife and mother is the most important thing. Children are the future. We live and sacrifice for them. And my husband knows that. Vote for the wonderful man that I'm vouching for.
There's no indication that this woman, like her husband, has a J.D. from Harvard. Her undergraduate degree is more impressive than his. As a lawyer she was senior to him: She served as his mentor when he was a summer associate at a fancy Chicago law firm where she was a permanent associate. She has (or had) professional stature and legal expertise. No trace of that showed in the speech she gave.
Isn't it ironic? The Obama campaign has relied on a theme called "the war on women," within which the Republicans want to shove women back into the past and Democrats represent the future where women are the full equals of men. Yes, yes, yes, that's all very nice, but the man has an election to win, and his woman must reenact — one more time — the role of the traditional, modest, little-lady, helpmeet housewife.
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