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Entry: Barack's Other Half Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/baracks_other_half#17565 Post contents: Even the Weekly Standard has found some of Mrs. Obama’s comments disturbing, although not that disturbing. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/764fosie.asp Michelle's America Mrs. Obama talks about herself and her country. by Jonathan V. Last 02/19/2008 12:00:00 AM Madison, Wisconsin Roughly 600 people gathered at the Capitol Theater in Madison's downtown Overture Center yesterday to listen to Michelle Obama make a pitch for her husband's presidential bid. They were treated to a revealing glimpse into the mind of the candidate's wife. Mrs. Obama also spent some time during her Madison remarks dwelling on her own life. In a passage attacking No Child Left Behind, she claimed that "If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that." She returned to the subject of her test scores and education later in the speech. She began by telling the crowd how she met a poor, presumably black, girl in South Carolina. Talking about this young girl, Mrs. Obama said (quote): She also knows that she is so much better than the limited expectations that this nation has for her. . . . She is hoping that the grownups in this country see some use for hope. Because that's all she's got. And she's dreaming that we'll get it right. And I know, because I was that little girl. Now all my life I have confronted people who had a certain expectation of me. Every step of the way, there was somebody there telling me what I couldn't do. Applied to Princeton. "You can't go there, your test scores aren't high enough." I went. I graduated with departmental honors. And then I wanted to go to Harvard. And that was probably a little too tough for me. I didn't even know why they said that. But I could go through every curve and twist and turn of my life and find somebody that was telling me, "Lower your expectations. Set your sights low. You're not ready. You can't do that." And every time I pushed past other people's limited expectations of me, and reached for things that I knew I could do, and grabbed my seat at the table that others felt so entitled to what I learned is that there's no magic to these people who feel so much more ready than me. I'm just as ready--always just as prepared--as anyone at that table. (Unquote) It was a remarkably un-self aware moment. If it's true that her scores didn't merit her admission to Princeton and Harvard, then rather than having someone trying to hold her back, it seems that someone was willing to take a chance on Michelle Obama. And that faith was rewarded: Even though her test scores weren't particularly outstanding, she thrived in elite settings and has had, by all accounts, an impressive professional career, too. But Mrs. Obama seems to both accept such a benefit of the doubt and then decry something that sounds a lot like the soft bigotry of low expectations. And she presents her academic credentials as a triumph over some nebulous group of people. When she talks about "grabbing her seat at the table" and finding that there was no "magic" in the other people who had also earned their way there, it sounds uncomfortably like she is dismissive of others who might not have had the help she received. Or perhaps it's just her reaction to a sense that there have been many people trying to stop the ascent of her and her husband. (If such people exist, they've been spectacularly unsuccessful.) Talking about Barack's Senate campaign, in which he ran unopposed by a serious Republican challenger, Michelle said that the couple learned that "when power is confronted with real change, they'll say anything to stop it." There "they" go again. Sent at: 2008 11 22