Is Trump's bombshell old divorce papers of Michelle and Barack Obama?

That's what the Daily Mail is rumoring. Unless there is a revelation of some significant misbehavior, this isn't big at all. It mainly makes Trump look small. And it's not helpful to Romney's cause for Trump to claim the spotlight, in the last 2 weeks of the campaign, over this.

Who cares about the internal workings of a political marriage? I always assume there's some phony PR to it. But the fact is they are together, they've played the public role of married couple, and they have 2 very real little girls who don't deserve to be hurt. And because of that, Trump's news, if this is what it is, will only make moderate, middle-of-the road voters feel compassion for Obama.

Trump should crawl back into his hole right now, before he does any damage.

"I expect that later this century we'll see a growing trend around the world of many couples deciding in advance to simply not have children."

"Hopefully this will occur via mutual agreement for the man to have a vasectomy early on."

Not everyone has to agonize over choosing life priorities, and I think it's likely more and more will choose to skip mom-ism altogether,... maybe for economic reasons, and maybe because we'll have more talk about women asking themselves, "Do I really want to raise kids?".  "If I love kids, would I rather free myself to work with lots of them in other settings?"  

Oh, what could go wrong?!

That's one of the early comments on an article over at The Nation, by Jessica Valenti, "I'm Not a 'Mother First,'" which begins:

Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said it was better for children to have a parent at home. “To have one parent to stay closely connected and at home during those early years of education can be very very important,” he said. It’s not hard to imagine which parent he’s talking about.

Romney’s statement didn’t elicit much in the way of outrage, a sign that American women have one more hurdle to overcome on the way to equality: the sexism of mom-ism. It’s no longer enough that women love their children. To be a truly committed parent, women are expected to be mothers above all else—we’re “moms first.”

To make her point, Valenti must reject Romney's use of the sex-neutral word "parent." Why not take it seriously? What does she do when her standard template doesn't fit? Just force it on anyway. Why weren't American women outraged at the sexism of Romney's statement? Because it wasn't sexist! It was putting children first.

And let's get some respect for the men who take the role of at-home spouse in the single-earner family (or who modify their work life to be the parent spending the most time "closely connected and at home"). Valenti mentions fathers in only one paragraph:

Fathers are never expected to subsume their identity into parenthood the way that mothers are. If President Obama were to tell us that he is 'father-in-chief' first, America would balk. How could a man be an effective president if he put the needs of his children above the needs of his country?

Women aren't expected to subsume their identity into parenthood anymore either. It is a choice, and a woman who makes that choice is at least as likely to be disrespected as to be praised.

And maybe President Obama should have waited until his girls were older before he immersed himself in the overwhelming duties of running for and serving as President. For some reason he had to jump in when he did, despite his and his daughters' youth. We were just about to get the first woman President, so the time was ripe.

ADDED: Hillary Clinton would have been a better President. Where's the outrage about that?

"While it’s great to listen to your kids’ ideas, there’s also a time when dads simply need to be dads."

"In this case, it would’ve been helpful for him to explain to Malia and Sasha that while her friends parents are no doubt lovely people, that’s not a reason to change thousands of years of thinking about marriage. Or that — as great as her friends may be — we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home. Ideally, fathers help shape their kids’ worldview."

Said Bristol Palin.

"Ann -- Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer: I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry."

Obama emails:

I hope you'll take a moment to watch the conversation, consider it, and weigh in yourself on behalf of marriage equality:

http://my.barackobama.com/Marriage

I watched. What struck me was how much he struggles to drag the statement out of himself and, specifically, how intently he stared down and to the left. There's some evidence that a person's eye direction indicates whether a person is accessing their memory or making something up. For a left-hander like Obama, looking down and to the left happens when the person is experiencing an internal dialogue — talking to himself.

Back to the email:

I've always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution.

But over the course of several years I've talked to friends and family about this. I've thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, I've gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction.

What I've come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens.

Even at my own dinner table, when I look at Sasha and Malia, who have friends whose parents are same-sex couples, I know it wouldn't dawn on them that their friends' parents should be treated differently.

So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

"Affirm" is such a studied word choice. I think he's pretty directly saying I decided to stop lying.

I respect the beliefs of others, and the right of religious institutions to act in accordance with their own doctrines. But I believe that in the eyes of the law, all Americans should be treated equally. And where states enact same-sex marriage, no federal act should invalidate them.

In the end, he's going to leave it to the states. Would he support a federal law to require states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states?
If you agree, you can stand up with me here.

Thank you,

Barack

Was your first thought I hope Malia is safe?

I read the emailed news alert out loud: 7.9 earthquake in Mexico. Meade's first response: "I hope Malia is safe." (Have you been following the Malia spring break stories?)

I looked it right up:

A strong, long 7.9 earthquake with an epicenter in Guerrero state shook central southern Mexico on Tuesday, swaying buildings in Mexico City and sending frightened workers and residents into the streets.

Let's see, Malia's in Oaxaca. Google maps... Oaxaca, Guerrero... 375 miles (by somewhat indirect roads).

I hope everyone is safe, and I wonder what it says about us — or, specifically, Meade — that we think first of the one American we know is in Mexico right now.

Obama says he doesn't want Malia and Sasha to be "attacked or called horrible names when they’re being good citizens."

Milking Flukegate.

"Five years ago today, a few thousand of us gathered in Springfield, Illinois, to launch an improbable campaign for president."

Email from Barack Obama.

The task was to build a grassroots movement capable of making the kind of change we believe in.

You've got to see this video about that journey -- it will make you smile...

Oh, really? Let me try...



Trying to rekindle the old spirit. Did I smile? Of course! It's a nice presentation of all the smiley Obama-related things there are... including catching the fly, dancing with Ellen, hugging his daughters, singing "Let's Stay Together," and saying he just killed Bin Laden. And Joe Biden. I always laugh when I see Joe Biden, but maybe that's just me.

Jezebel finds it "icky" to talk about what Malia and Sasha are wearing...

... because "They're not walking the red carpet, they're walking to school. They deserve privacy — and part of privacy is the protection from undue scrutiny."

And yet Malia and Sasha are not walking to school in the photograph that Jezebel publishes to illustrate its prissy faux-outrage. They are appearing alongside the President of the United States and the First Lady at a photo-op staged in front of Christmas decorations, and they are wearing bright-colored satiny dresses and smiling graciously at children dressed as Christmas elves. So there they are: political props.

But we're not supposed to talk about them because "They're not walking the red carpet, they're walking to school"? What they are doing in the very photo you're showing is far beyond a mere walk on the red carpet. They are walking in public, for political purposes, in the most conspicuous possible way. You can still argue that because they are children, we shouldn't talk about their clothes. But you'll have to, you know, actually make that argument.

I feel free to talk about their clothes. Their clothes are pretty, and they look adorable. There now, how "icky" is that?

By the way, is it okay to talk about Chelsea Clinton yet? Because she's — what? — 31? Remember when she said "I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press and that applies to you" to a child? In 2009, when she was 29. Now, suddenly, she is the press. That was clever, no? Going from you can never talk about me to now, I'm going to talk about everyone else in an instant. Now, she's going to lead a "purposely public life," now that she's controlling the cameras. She's a celebrity on purpose now. Before she was just a victim of circumstance, the child of a President, and yet she was paraded for political purposes whenever it served the interests of the President.



Oh, but no, no, no... you can't criticize now. Because look: a child! The child emits a halo of immunity protecting the most powerful man in the world.

I'm not saying we should mock the children, though. Just mock the President... and his wife... for their use of children — when that's what they do — and for everything else that flits through your icky mind.

"Recently, I've been taking a series of executive actions that don't require congressional approval."

"Well, here's another one. We can't wait to pardon these turkeys."



(I love the complete lack of enthusiasm from the daughters, including declining to laugh at dad's jokes.)

"Bloggers Challenge President on Standardized Testing."

The NYT reports:

Mr. Obama criticized “high-stakes” tests last week at a town-hall-style meeting, contrasting them with less-pressured tests his daughters took in their Washington private school....

Anthony Cody, a teacher in Oakland, Calif., who writes a blog for Education Week, suggested that the president was disavowing the policies of his education secretary, Arne Duncan, which include expanding student testing to evaluate teachers and developing new tests to be given several times a year to measure student progress.

“All these changes RAISE the stakes on the tests, for teachers and for schools,” Mr. Cody wrote in a blog post, following an earlier post titled “If only the Department of Education could hear this guy Obama, boy, they would have to rethink their approach!”

... [A]nother blogger, Deborah Meier, a senior scholar at New York University’s education school, [wrote] “In reality the government is paying people to invent more bubble tests”...

The NYT makes an article about bloggers making an issue out of something the mainstream press had ignored, and the article only contains one link to one of the blogs it has mined for material.

Meanwhile, the article is festooned with links — on words like "Malia" and "Sasha" — that go to a NYT page full of links to other NYT articles about on that topic. It looks like they don't understand how people read on the web, or more likely, that they are trying to manipulate us into random poking around inside the NYT, upping their page-view count for their own purposes. To be fair, the one blog post they link to collects the links to the various blogs they've talked about in the article. Oddly, that blog post links back to the NYT article that linked to it.

Ah, no. I see! They just link to Anthony Cody's blog, and not the 2 posts that their hyperlinked text refers to. The top post is a new post about the NYT article, and it provides all the links that were missing in the NYT article. Ugh! NYT, get your linking right! If you're talking about blog posts, link to each specific blog post. And get rid of those idiot links on words that go to your own search pages!

I know, I linked to the NYT. I did that because I'm honest about showing my own entry point. I wouldn't have read Cody's blog otherwise. From his top post:

The Obama campaign relied on the energy of millions of us, activated by a call to our hopes and dreams. We were exhausted by eight years of Bush, seven years of No Child Left Behind, and Obama promised a fresh start. We have not seen that fresh start in education. Instead we are seeing a deep entrenchment on the part of the Department of Education, finding ever more creative ways to pretend that making the tests more frequent will somehow make them benign. Those of us who are experiencing the effects of these policies are not deceived. We see how they are destroying schools, and stealing opportunities from children....

Last week, President Obama reminded us all why his election gave many of us so much hope. In 338 words he spoke of how he wanted his daughters, Sasha and Malia, to have their learning tested. He described a low-stakes, low pressure environment, with the results used not to punish them, their teachers or their school, but simply to find out what their strengths are, and where they might need extra support. He spoke of the need to avoid teaching to the test, and the value of engaging projects that would make students excited about learning. President Obama has made sure his daughters can learn this way. If only Department of Education policies would allow students in our public schools this same privilege!

As 3 women push him into war, President Obama goes to Brazil, with 5 women, to see Brazil's female President, who gives him the cold shoulder.

"One of the main reasons for my trip is to strengthen economic partnerships abroad so that we create good jobs at home," Obama said, using what could be a stock justification for any presidential trip. I'm not buying it. In times of crisis, the President belongs in the White House.

The NYT channels the insipid campaign 2012 PR:

Mr. Obama’s visit has also been billed as way for him to connect more generally with Latin Americans, especially in Brazil, a multiracial society where he has been wildly popular since his presidential campaign. But the White House’s plans to stage a speech in a plaza where thousands of Brazilians could see him were aborted in favor of one indoors, at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, because of the Secret Service’s security concerns.

Oh, the theater — the teatro —  didn't even work out. Obama in Brazil was supposed to look like Obama in Berlin. The photo-op... botched. My advice: You're President. The security in the White House is ideal. The imagery is ideal. Be President.

Ugh. I can't believe I'm reading this on the same day I'm reading about 3 women prodding him into action in Libya. Accompanying him on his trip to South America are: his wife, Michelle Obama; his daughters, Sasha and Malia; his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson; and his daughters’ godmother, Eleanor Kaye Wilson. 5 women.

And why is he going to Brazil?

The Brazilians under the new presidency of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, are eager to build closer economic and political ties to the Obama administration. 

Females, females, females!

But their occasional differences on the international stage were reflected on Thursday night when Brazil was one of five nations to abstain in the vote of the United Nations Security Council to authorize force against Libya.

There's imagery for you: The male, emasculated by female abstention.

After a bilateral get-acquainted meeting with Ms. Rousseff, Mr. Obama was to [blah blah]...

“She has been very positive about the type of relationship that she wants to pursue with the United States,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, in a briefing before the trip.

But the Obama-Rousseff relationship-building got off to an inauspicious start when, before Mr. Obama boarded Air Force One, came word that Ms. Rousseff was refusing to hold the scheduled joint press conference with Mr. Obama here on Saturday after their first meeting. 

Looks like that first date bilateral get-acquainted meeting didn't go too well. One world leader is playing this relationship for powerful imagery, and it's not Obama. He must feel so used. He went all the way to South America, and all he got was a lousy indoor stage show. No massive, multiracial crowd scene, no presser with Dilma.

I'm picturing Obama banging on a closed door yelling "Dilma!" — like this.

What Sarah Palin is doing to her children.

The ratings are up for "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Oh, that's so sad for the people who exulted last week when the ratings were down. I skipped last week myself, but I watched this week's show. It was pretty cool seeing the Palins hauling in fish nets, slicing salmon into strips, tying the strips with string, and hanging them up in a smokehouse, with Todd's Eskimo grandmother demonstrating how to set up the fire to get the smoke just right.

I was touched by Sarah's interaction with Trig and with another boy with Down Syndrome (a member of her extended family). It made me cry and it made me think about this post by Andrew Sullivan criticizing Sarah Palin for combining motherhood and a career in national politics:

Anyone one who genuinely cared about the privacy of her kids would have either said no [to the vice presidential nomination] or been extremely careful to release the information as soberly as possible....

[S]he parades a special needs infant in front of the press, dangles him half-naked in front of book tour crowds, uses him constantly as a rhetorical campaign prop, and cites him at almost every speech to appeal to pro-life voters....

What Palin has done with her young children is unprecedented. Think of how Obama strictly protects his daughters, and how George W. Bush did the same. 

Think of how the press — including you — regards those daughters as off-limits but goes after Palin's daughters.

What Palin has done is use her children, having failed to actually rear them. She is still doing it on her reality show. That she has gone so far as to use and thereby abuse a child with Down Syndrome whose interests are clearly in seclusion, careful nurturing and care, and constant parental attention, tells you a huge amount. 

Seclusion? Is that right, tucking those kids away from the rest of the society? Why not be out and proud?

Obama has written a children's book.

"President Obama's picture book for kids, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (Knopf, $17.99), pays tribute to 13 Americans whose traits he sees in his own children. The 31-page book, for kids ages 3 and up, is filled with lyrical questions for Malia, 12, and Sasha, 9, opening with, 'Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?'"

Crazy Daily News headline: "President Obama hits church with First Family in bid to altar 'Muslim' myth."

Quite aside from the (deliberate?) misspelling — "altar" for "alter" — and the repetition of the "myth" — which I'm putting in quotes only because it's their word — the newspaper purports to know why a man (and a woman and 2 little girls) go to church.

Let me give you a quiz. (The first response below is the one The Daily News ascribed to the President and his family.)

Excluding weddings and funerals and the like, what's the primary reason you'd attend a religious service?
	To enhance my reputation in my community.
	To accompany a family member or members and thus please or set a good example for them.
	To get together with friends and associates.
	For the beauty of the music, the literature, and the art and architecture.
	As insurance, in case there really is an afterlife.
	To worship God and pray.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: I'm glad at least a couple people admit to the afterlife insurance motivation. But here's the thing: What if doing religion as afterlife insurance is the one thing that pisses God off?

"They can share a pool, movie theater, bowling alley and big backyard with friends."

"That's allowed the girls to have some good and happy relationships here in D.C."

Because it's so hard to be one of the popular kids.

"This new appetite for all-things-Sasha may be due in large part to her wholesome look..."

I thought we weren't going to talk about the President's children. Or is it okay to gush inanely like this, serenely confident that the rule against talking about the President's children will stop everyone but the truly contemptible from saying that you've gushed inanely?

Obama, speaking of his family's financial situation: "We’re not that far removed from what most Americans are going through."

From an inane interview with ABC with consumer reporter Elizabeth Leamy, who makes a lame effort to convey the impression that she's going to enlighten viewers about the new financial reform law. Leamy exclaims that Americans don't know what's in the law, as if she's about to extract that information from the President. Spoiler: She's not.

Laughing, she hefts the 2,000 pages and shakes them at the President, and he laughs too and jokes "Don't hurt yourself." She laughs more. Ha ha. Isn't funny?! She recites a seemingly memorized question that ends with "Persuade me that this law matters to ordinary Americans," and then she lets the President gets away with simply asserting the purpose of the law: consumers will have lots of new "security and protection." But what's in the 2,000 pages that gives "security and protection"? Obama doesn't have to say.

Leamy cites some examples of "unintended consequences," and Obama looks a little uncomfortable but quickly plugs in a sound bite about how consumers are going to get "more information." Why is that an answer? There will be unintended consequences, but somewhere, in writing, you will get told about them? And that's it for the subject of what's in the law, as the interview moves on to whether Obama will appoint Elizabeth Warren — Leamy calls her "Elizabeth Warden" — to head the new agency.

At this point, less than 3 minutes into a 6 1/2 minute segment — did ABC edit out some more substantive material? — Leamy slips into the subject of what it all means for Obama and his family.

"What are you and the First Lady teaching your daughters about money?" That has nothing to do with the 2,000 page law that we've learned nothing about. We're into the touchy-feely, news-for-women part of the morning show. For the first time in the interview, Obama compliments Leamy on her question: "You know, it's a great question." Ha. Translation: Oh, good, we're through the hard part of the interview. Obama says that the girls get an allowance and "may be able to earn some of their own money babysitting." How could that possibly happen? How many Secret Service agents would have to come along? Anyway, Leamy is reduced to giggling and raising her hand in a silly, girly "pick me!" gesture as if Malia or Sasha would babysit her kids.

Leamy asks about Obama's own retirement fund. "Can you feel the pain?" Oh, lord, does she  think she's interviewing Bill Clinton and that Obama would emote "I feel your pain"? I imagine he's thinking: You know, that's a stupid question. Do you have any idea what a fountain of wealth I am? If I ever ran short, I could hire a ghostwriter and do another autobiography or 2.

But he has to be nice and he has to take the political opportunity. He rambles through an answer that includes the quote I put in the post title. Yes, we laughed when he said that, but, seriously, what was he supposed to say? It's Leamy's fault for not asking serious questions about how the new law would work and for indulging herself and disrespecting her viewers with mushy family stuff about the Obamas.

Their first anniversary as President and First Lady... and they look awfully glum as they emerge from the Blue Duck Tavern after eating — perhaps — the braised wreckfish ($26).

I know you can take 1,000 photos and pick out the 2 with the most negativity, but still.... these are the photos in the article, and... well, I'll leave it to you to imagine the dialogue.

By contrast, look how sweet he is out with his daughter:

And here is the haloed Michelle clasping hands with a true goddess, Nadia Comaneci:

Michelle Obama takes Malia and Sasha out "for a hearty lunch of burgers, fries, onion rings and milkshakes."

They had cheeseburgers and the "President Obama burger" (with "horseradish mayo, red onion marmalade, crumbled blue cheese and bacon"). Among the milkshakes was one with "butterscotch, hot fudge, malt balls, custard and whipped cream."

I hope this means Michelle and Barack will lay off lecturing us about what foods we ought to eat. Or will the next photo op be in the setting of the White House vegetable garden?

What are we to think of all this burger eating? Those little girls are slim, certainly not obese, but what are other little girls supposed to think? They want cheeseburgers and malts too. What's the secret? Maybe the hamburgers are cut in quarters and each girl gets a 200-calorie little sandwich along with a a 100-calorie portion of the malt. Really, how do you do it? (Certainly not by throwing up!) The little girls of America need some health-care info from the family that has undertaken to oversee our health.

Now, one more thing. Why was the female component of the Obama family deployed yesterday? The linked NYT blog says "Someone in the White House obviously had a hankering for an Obama burger." Now, I'm going to throw up. This is political. Here's a clue:

Let's read Andrew Sullivan's new Sarah Palin post.

Here's the post:

It's getting worse. This is a classic:

"The Palins have no intention of providing a ratings boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show. Plus, it would be wise to keep Willow away from David Letterman," PalinPAC spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said Wednesday.

So Letterman is a child abuser for making a tasteless joke?

Sullivan seems to miss that Stapleton just made a child-rape joke. It's a joke! Well, it's a joke is not an apt excuse — is it? — when the joke is supposed to work based on a shared belief about the butt of it.

Stapleton's joke depends on seeing Letterman as someone who's enthused about the rape of children — or at least the children of politicians we don't like. By the same token, Letterman's joke worked to the extent that the audience shares the belief that Palin's daughter is a big slut.

Neither joke is any damned good. Letterman is a creep for making a girl the butt of his joke, and Stapleton is an idiot for trying to show that she can joke too and cranking out another dose of child-rape humor.

But the surrealism and narcissism of the Wasilla nutcase is what stands out:

"First, remember in the campaign, Barack Obama said, 'Family's off limits. You don't talk about my family.' "And the candidate who must be obeyed, everybody adhered to that and they did leave his family alone. They haven't done that on the other side of the ticket and it has continued to this day so that's a political double standard."

So brandishing a special needs infant as a campaign prop was putting your family off-limits? Pushing your own daughter into the klieglights to divert attention from your own fantastic lies is family-protective? Pushing Bristol Palin into an absurd abstinence campaign to gin up support from the Christianist right is looking after your kids? Palin reaps what she sows. And she clings to any whisp of victimhood like the attention-starved celebreality star she really is.

Now, this is absurd. Nearly all politicians display their families. Do they brandish them? Brandish means to shake or wave (as a weapon) menacingly/to exhibit in an ostentatious or aggressive manner. Occasionally, one reads of some criminal swinging a baby around like a cudgel, but with politicians, the displaying of the family is non-aggressive and without any weapon connotations. Obama displayed and continues to display Sasha and Malia in the conventional political way, and I'm sure Sullivan would be steamed if anyone mocked them or said anything sexual about them.

Bristol Palin's abstinence effort seems pretty silly to me too, but there's no reason to view that as opening her up to all sorts of vicious mockery. She found herself in an awfully uncomfortable spot. It's embarrassing enough for a teenager to become pregnant by accident, but to endure this in the crossfire of a political campaign had to be excruciating. But she put up with it somehow, didn't take the out of abortion, kept smiling, and tried to turn herself into a good lesson for others. How is this sowing something that she deserves to reap?

Or — oh — it's Palin who reaps what she sows. Is the girl not a person worthy of any regard? What did the girl do? "Family's off limits. You don't talk about my family." Obama said that. It was intended to bind his harshest opponents to a standard of behavior. Sullivan offers absolutely no reason why the same principle does not protect Palin's family.

And why should the governor of a state be called an "attention-starved celebreality star"? Is it because you don't respect her as a politician? You might call everyone with the nerve to run for President/Vice President an attention-starved celebreality star, but the fact is you don't. Apparently, it's because she's got kids who do things that you think we can sit back and view as objects of idle amusement. If anyone is to be a politician — in your nasty little world — their kids better toe the line and stay perfectly prim and healthy and smart (or hide).