Pale Rider
05-10-2008, 01:34 AM
This is a piece I received in an email....
Michelle v Cindy
By Mark Alexander
While John McCain’s extensive congressional record is well documented, until recently not much was known about his Leftist opponent, Barack Hussein Obama. Two of my three-part profile essays on Obama focus on those who have, by his own account, been his most significant mentors. (See Disciple of Hate and Another Marx brother.)
Still trying to discern who Obama really is, we turn this week to the person who is closest to him, his wife and self-proclaimed senior policy advisor, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama. Hillary Rodham Clinton may have butted her way into a few policy issues during her husband’s presidential tenure, but Michelle Obama will very likely be dictating policy if her husband gets elected.
Michelle Obama was born 17 January 1964 into a middle-income family on the South Side of Chicago. She grew up with a mother and father in her home, and an older brother. After excelling in high school, Michelle majored in sociology and minored in African-American studies at Princeton University.
At Princeton, she authored a senior thesis entitled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” proclaiming that her college experience “made me far more aware of my ‘Blackness.’ I will always be Black first...”
She went on to complete her JD from Harvard Law School in 1988.
After law school, Michelle returned to Chicago to work for the law firm Sidley Austin, where she was assigned to mentor the only other black employee of the firm, Barack Obama.
The two were married by their now-infamous pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in October 1992. They have two daughters, Malia Ann (1998) and Sasha (2001), and their principal residence is a fashionable South Side Georgian mansion purchased with the help of good friend, and local gangster, Tony Rezko.
After their marriage, Michelle joined the staff of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, arguably one of the most corrupt mayoral dynasties in America history.
So, who is this chief advisor to Barack?
She says her campaign role “is to give people yet another slice of who Barack is, making him even more multidimensional. People want to know not just about policies... but who are you? What do you believe in? Can I trust you?”
Indeed.
In her own words, like those of her husband, her “black first” indoctrination casts a pall over her vision for America.
“Fear creates this veil of impossibility and it is hanging over all of our heads,” she recently said. “Only Barack Obama can fix America’s soul. Only Barack Obama can fix America’s broken soul.”
Barack, our savior?
When not talking about fear and black victimhood, hope is a common theme: “What we’ve learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback, and let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.”
Princeton, Harvard, Mayor Daley and a million-dollar mansion, but “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country”? On that note, my colleague, Michelle Malkin concludes, “I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. In this case, it’s what happens when an elite Democratic politician’s wife says what a significant portion of the party’s base really believes to be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride.”
Like Barack, Michelle builds her stump speeches around the victimization script.
She repeatedly claims that America is “just downright mean” and whines that we are “a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day... Folks are struggling like never before...”
Of her husband’s woes regarding his racist and Marxist mentors, she complains, “The bar has been shifting and moving in this race, but the irony is, the sad irony is, that’s exactly what is happening to most Americans in this country.”
Yuval Levin, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes of Michelle, “By her husband’s logic, Michelle Obama must be a heavily armed xenophobic religious zealot, because boy is she bitter... In Michelle Obama’s America, everybody’s suffering, no one has time to make any friends, no one earns enough to eke out a living anymore, and the bar of success is always being moved just out of reach.”
So, another wealthy “useful idiot” in the vein of Jean-Francois Kerry and Teddy Kennedy is going to save the proletariat from the czars? That dog won’t hunt in the general election.
In contrast to Michelle Obama, let me introduce you to Cindy Hensley McCain, wife of Republican contender John McCain.
Cindy McCain was born 20 May 1954 in Phoenix, Arizona, and was the only child of James and Marguerite Hensley. She went to Central High School in Phoenix and was a rodeo beauty queen.
She went on to complete both a BA and an MA in education at the University of Southern California. Afterward, she began a career as a special-education teacher in Avondale, Arizona, working with severely disabled children.
She met John McCain in 1979 at a military reception in Hawaii. He was 18 years her senior. McCain and his first wife, Carol, were divorced in February 1980, and he married Cindy on 17 May 1980 in Phoenix. John has two adopted sons and one daughter, Sidney (1966), from a previous marriage, and he and Cindy have four children, Meghan (1984), John IV (1986), James (1988) and their adopted daughter, Bridget (1994). Cindy discovered Bridget in Mother Teresa’s Bangladesh orphanage, which did not have the medical care facilities to provide surgery the child needed to survive. She brought the child back to the U.S. , she saw to it that the infant was nursed back to good health, and Bridget is now a healthy and vibrant 16-year-old.
The McCains had a difficult year in 1989, as Cindy became addicted to painkillers following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs. She overcame that addiction with the help of her husband, family and friends.
In the following years, in addition to raising her family, Cindy was instrumental in several charitable institutions. She founded and was CEO of American Voluntary Medical Team, an organization that arranged medical assistance to victims of natural disasters or civil wars around the world. She has also been active with Operation Smile medical teams, taking trips to Morocco, Vietnam and India. She serves on the board of the HALO Trust, and she has been hands-on in operations to remove landmines in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Angola and Kuwait, where she witnessed the death of a child from a landmine detonation. She is a board member of CARE, which assists impoverished women and children.
In 2000, after the death of her father, Cindy became chairman of Hensley & Co. , one of the nation’s largest Anheuser-Busch distributors, where she consults with the CEO on all major business initiatives. Her estimated net worth is in excess of $100 million.
Cindy suffered a serious stroke from high blood pressure in April 2004, but through physical therapy, has made a near-full recovery.
Though we don’t hear anything about this on the campaign trail, both of Cindy’s and John’s boys are serving their nation in the military. Jimmy, a Marine, is preparing for his second tour of duty in Iraq. (He was so young when he enlisted that Cindy had to sign consent forms.) John IV (Jack) is about to graduate from Annapolis (his father’s alma mater) and aspires to become a Marine officer.
In stark contrast to Michelle Obama, here is Mrs. McCain’s position on the issues: “My husband’s the candidate. I’m not.” In regard to her vision for America, she says with a smile, “I have and always will be proud of my country.” Clearly, her husband echoes that sentiment.
Michelle v Cindy
By Mark Alexander
While John McCain’s extensive congressional record is well documented, until recently not much was known about his Leftist opponent, Barack Hussein Obama. Two of my three-part profile essays on Obama focus on those who have, by his own account, been his most significant mentors. (See Disciple of Hate and Another Marx brother.)
Still trying to discern who Obama really is, we turn this week to the person who is closest to him, his wife and self-proclaimed senior policy advisor, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama. Hillary Rodham Clinton may have butted her way into a few policy issues during her husband’s presidential tenure, but Michelle Obama will very likely be dictating policy if her husband gets elected.
Michelle Obama was born 17 January 1964 into a middle-income family on the South Side of Chicago. She grew up with a mother and father in her home, and an older brother. After excelling in high school, Michelle majored in sociology and minored in African-American studies at Princeton University.
At Princeton, she authored a senior thesis entitled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” proclaiming that her college experience “made me far more aware of my ‘Blackness.’ I will always be Black first...”
She went on to complete her JD from Harvard Law School in 1988.
After law school, Michelle returned to Chicago to work for the law firm Sidley Austin, where she was assigned to mentor the only other black employee of the firm, Barack Obama.
The two were married by their now-infamous pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in October 1992. They have two daughters, Malia Ann (1998) and Sasha (2001), and their principal residence is a fashionable South Side Georgian mansion purchased with the help of good friend, and local gangster, Tony Rezko.
After their marriage, Michelle joined the staff of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, arguably one of the most corrupt mayoral dynasties in America history.
So, who is this chief advisor to Barack?
She says her campaign role “is to give people yet another slice of who Barack is, making him even more multidimensional. People want to know not just about policies... but who are you? What do you believe in? Can I trust you?”
Indeed.
In her own words, like those of her husband, her “black first” indoctrination casts a pall over her vision for America.
“Fear creates this veil of impossibility and it is hanging over all of our heads,” she recently said. “Only Barack Obama can fix America’s soul. Only Barack Obama can fix America’s broken soul.”
Barack, our savior?
When not talking about fear and black victimhood, hope is a common theme: “What we’ve learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback, and let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.”
Princeton, Harvard, Mayor Daley and a million-dollar mansion, but “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country”? On that note, my colleague, Michelle Malkin concludes, “I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. In this case, it’s what happens when an elite Democratic politician’s wife says what a significant portion of the party’s base really believes to be the truth: America is more a source of shame than pride.”
Like Barack, Michelle builds her stump speeches around the victimization script.
She repeatedly claims that America is “just downright mean” and whines that we are “a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day... Folks are struggling like never before...”
Of her husband’s woes regarding his racist and Marxist mentors, she complains, “The bar has been shifting and moving in this race, but the irony is, the sad irony is, that’s exactly what is happening to most Americans in this country.”
Yuval Levin, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes of Michelle, “By her husband’s logic, Michelle Obama must be a heavily armed xenophobic religious zealot, because boy is she bitter... In Michelle Obama’s America, everybody’s suffering, no one has time to make any friends, no one earns enough to eke out a living anymore, and the bar of success is always being moved just out of reach.”
So, another wealthy “useful idiot” in the vein of Jean-Francois Kerry and Teddy Kennedy is going to save the proletariat from the czars? That dog won’t hunt in the general election.
In contrast to Michelle Obama, let me introduce you to Cindy Hensley McCain, wife of Republican contender John McCain.
Cindy McCain was born 20 May 1954 in Phoenix, Arizona, and was the only child of James and Marguerite Hensley. She went to Central High School in Phoenix and was a rodeo beauty queen.
She went on to complete both a BA and an MA in education at the University of Southern California. Afterward, she began a career as a special-education teacher in Avondale, Arizona, working with severely disabled children.
She met John McCain in 1979 at a military reception in Hawaii. He was 18 years her senior. McCain and his first wife, Carol, were divorced in February 1980, and he married Cindy on 17 May 1980 in Phoenix. John has two adopted sons and one daughter, Sidney (1966), from a previous marriage, and he and Cindy have four children, Meghan (1984), John IV (1986), James (1988) and their adopted daughter, Bridget (1994). Cindy discovered Bridget in Mother Teresa’s Bangladesh orphanage, which did not have the medical care facilities to provide surgery the child needed to survive. She brought the child back to the U.S. , she saw to it that the infant was nursed back to good health, and Bridget is now a healthy and vibrant 16-year-old.
The McCains had a difficult year in 1989, as Cindy became addicted to painkillers following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs. She overcame that addiction with the help of her husband, family and friends.
In the following years, in addition to raising her family, Cindy was instrumental in several charitable institutions. She founded and was CEO of American Voluntary Medical Team, an organization that arranged medical assistance to victims of natural disasters or civil wars around the world. She has also been active with Operation Smile medical teams, taking trips to Morocco, Vietnam and India. She serves on the board of the HALO Trust, and she has been hands-on in operations to remove landmines in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Angola and Kuwait, where she witnessed the death of a child from a landmine detonation. She is a board member of CARE, which assists impoverished women and children.
In 2000, after the death of her father, Cindy became chairman of Hensley & Co. , one of the nation’s largest Anheuser-Busch distributors, where she consults with the CEO on all major business initiatives. Her estimated net worth is in excess of $100 million.
Cindy suffered a serious stroke from high blood pressure in April 2004, but through physical therapy, has made a near-full recovery.
Though we don’t hear anything about this on the campaign trail, both of Cindy’s and John’s boys are serving their nation in the military. Jimmy, a Marine, is preparing for his second tour of duty in Iraq. (He was so young when he enlisted that Cindy had to sign consent forms.) John IV (Jack) is about to graduate from Annapolis (his father’s alma mater) and aspires to become a Marine officer.
In stark contrast to Michelle Obama, here is Mrs. McCain’s position on the issues: “My husband’s the candidate. I’m not.” In regard to her vision for America, she says with a smile, “I have and always will be proud of my country.” Clearly, her husband echoes that sentiment.