Much is being made of Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth's embrace. As the First Lady and Queen chatted at the G-20 reception on Wednesday night, the Queen touched her hand to Michelle Obama's back, and the gesture was then returned. Royal etiquette dictates that the Queen not be touched unless she reaches out first. Patting the Queen's back, however, is almost unprecedented behavior in Buckingham Palace.
OK, so we're in the midst of the worst recession in modern memory. We're mired in what has turned into this generation's Vietnam- the pointless, never-ending clusterf--k in Iraq. We're quickly becoming enmeshed in yet another quagmire- the war in Afghanistan. And...last, but certainly not least, we're saddled with a health care system with more holes in it than the Soviet economy. OK, so let me get this straight...THE MEDIA IS OBSESSING OVER WHETHER A SIMPLE ACT OF HUMAN AFFECTION IS INAPPROPRIATE?? WTF? Have we completely lost our collective mind? We can barely be bothered to devote brain cells to the REAL problems facing not only this country but the world...and yet we're allowing the media to obsess over all things Michelle Obama as if anything she does, says, or thinks actually matters? Methinks perhaps it might be time to start advocating for those summary executions I've been holding off pushing for....
Don't get me wrong; I have tremendous respect and admiration for Michelle Obama. Clearly, she's a phenomenal woman and a terrific role model...but she's the First Lady. She makes no policy, she has no authority, and she draws no salary. She carries no responsibility for the direction this country takes...and yet her every move, thought, deed, and sartorial decision is dissected and over-analyzed to the nth degree...as if any of it is actually of something meaningful. As wonderful a person as she may be, as great a role model as she is for so many, there is nothing that Michelle Obama does that warrants the drooling, sycophantic adoration and analysis she receives from the media on a daily basis. Nothing. Not while Americans are dying in an immoral war or losing their livelihoods due to the sloth, inattention, and criminal ineptitude and corruption of the previous Administration.
We should be able to expect reasonable, rational analysis of the issues we face. Instead, we get treated to ruminations on whether or not the First Lady has committed a fashion faux pas, on her wearing J.Crew as she visits 10 Downing Street, on her wearing a Jason Wu dress, even on how she changed outfits somewhere over the Atlantic. I don't mean to pick on the Huffington Post, a website I have a lot of respect for...but Jeebus, can we give it a rest already? And it's not just the Huffington Post that's guilty of this sort of quasi-journalistic excess. In fact, it's pretty much anywhere you might care to look...and that's exactly the problem.
There are REAL problems in this country that require...nay, demand...sober reflection and analysis. What do we get instead? Column inch after column inch slavishly devoted to Michelle Obama's panty hose...or whatever it is that happens to be the obsession of the moment. It's insulting, it's demeaning, and, worst of all, it's petty. While we're focusing on the dance band, the Titanic is sinking. Instead of obsessing over whether putting an arm around the Queen of England is appropriate or THE MOST HORRIBLE BREACH OF PROTOCOL IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND, perhaps we'd be better served if the media actually paid attention to the reality of how we got to where we are. Perhaps instead of waxing rhapsodic over Michelle Obama's dress, the media could be talking about why and how we became a country that both engages in and condones torture. Instead of ruminating in loving detail about the First Lady's fashion sense (or lack thereof), the media could be reflecting on how and why the previous Administration stood idly by while the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street brought our economy to it's knees through unchecked greed, avarice, and arrogance.
If I sound angry, it's because I am. Over the past eight years, the media stood mute and sheeplike while the previous Administration engaged in the largest, most egregious display of criminal incompetence and ineptitude in this nation's history. Now, when circumstances demand that the media should be fulfilling their traditional watchdog role, we get...breathless examinations of Michelle Obama's sartorial habits.
WTF, indeed....
