Classic Politics of Distortion

Amos Ajo

AJC:Already, we’re getting a taste of what’s in store for the next nine months. One side will insist on speaking in French. And the other will listen only in German.

The network was Fox, of course, the host was John Gibson, and the video clip showed Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, saying this:

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

The first to rake over her words on Tuesday was Ralph Reed, the former Georgia GOP chairman:

“The reason why I think this isn’t going to go away, unless she apologizes quickly, is because it plays into a stereotype about the left wing of the Democratic Party, that it blames America first, that they don’t see the greatness of America, and it really makes me wonder if somebody who is roughly about Barack and Michelle’s age, what country she grew up in.

“I mean, I was proud of America when we won the Cold War and the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated. I was proud when we expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. I was proud when we liberated 50 million people from the Taliban of Saddam Hussein. I was proud when we provided humanitarian aid to the victims of an earthquake in Iran and to a tsunami in Asia.

“I think the other thing it does is it plays into this weakness that’s developing that the Obama candidacy is sort of a modern political equivalent of Beatle mania rather than a legitimate aspiration to be commander-in-chief.”

Replied analyst Kirsten Powers: “In reference to that little speech that Ralph just gave, I mean why do people think that about liberals? It’s because people do what Ralph just did.

“They sit around and they claim that because apparently Ralph Reed and all his friends were marching around in excitement, the day that they remember that we won the Cold War, and she doesn’t rah-rah about it the way they do, that therefore she is not a proud American.

“Look this is a woman who is a mother, she is a lawyer, she’s not somebody who has been politically active as far as I can tell. If you’re asking what was she thinking when we won the Cold War when she was probably in law school, I don’t think it probably tells you that much about her.

“She has come out and she has clarified what she meant. Look, this is the front-runner. The fact of the matter is that she has been really lucky, I think that, she really hasn’t tripped up yet.”