I know I blogged a lot about Michelle Obama last week, but my new VDARE column on her includes much new material and presents, perhaps for the first time, a coherent picture of how her life story drives her strong attitudes on major racial issues, which, in turn, suggests something about her husband's inner views.
Here's an excerpt about her career:
After a few years at Sidley Austin, she let her law license lapse and began working as go-between for Mayor Daley's Machine. She has since enjoyed the kind of vague but well-paid career made possible by affirmative action. The description on the candidate's website of what exactly she's been doing for the U. of Chicago Medical Center is eye-glazing but ultimately revealing: she's in the diversity racket.
"She also managed the business diversity program. Michelle has fostered the University of Chicago's relationship with the surrounding community and developed the diversity program, making them both integral parts of the Medical Center's mission."
With great power comes great rewards. A couple of months after her husband was sworn in as U.S. Senator, Michelle's salary at the Medical Center was raised from $121,910 to $316,962.
A cynic might say that this rather resembles a $195,000 annual … uh, investment by a large private medical institution in the good will of a U.S. Senator and potential President who may well play the crucial role in deciding whether or not there will continue to be large private medical institutions.
Another way of looking at it is that Michelle's value on the influence market went up $200,000 when her husband moved up, so the Medical Center had to ante up or lose her to somebody else who would pay the going rate for the spouse of a political superstar.
Still, to say that would be to suggest that Michelle Obama on her own isn't worth $316,962, which, like any and all skepticism about the Obamas, would be racist. So, almost nobody in America is saying it.
The Daily Mail of London has taken a more jaundiced view:
"An acquaintance of Obama's family compares her with another political wife, another lawyer as it happens, with a keen interest in making money. "Michelle is very much like Cherie Blair [wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair]. She is a middle-class girl who has discovered that money is nice and doesn't see that as a contradiction with having radical beliefs," he said.
Chicago's veteran political consultant and pundit Joe Novak agrees, saying: "She [Michelle] is now motivated more by personal gain than by social consciousness. She saw her opportunities, and she took them." … [More]
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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20 comments:
Nice post. Next stop, his mom. She may have had even more issues.
That house is going to cost Obama. Apparently Obama through Rezko has deep ties, financially on the house, to Saddam's and Khadafi's moneyman Nadhmi Auichi, the 13th richest man in Britain. Under investigation for NHS fraud in Britain, lots of Brit lawmakers in his pay, barred from FRANCE for corruption.
Auichi is barred from the US and Obama pulled strings to get him let in.
Ordinary Chicago Sleaze is one thing. Being in debt to Saddam and Khadafi's banker is another. Gotta love Hillary!
Do NOT cross the Smartest Woman in the World(tm)
"Next stop, his mom."
At this point, I don't think even half of American adults know Obama has a white mom. She's been kept out of the picture, as far as I can tell, probably because it would take away from his "black appeal". If people knew that, technically, he's as white as he is black, that would be ... confusing (although according to our strange societal rules, being half black and half white makes you entirely black and not at all white).
Speaking of which, has anyone else caught wind of all the bitching that has gone on in the wake of Obama being impersonated on Saturday Night Live by white actor Fred Armisen? People are actually saying that Lorne Michaels should have gone out and hired a new cast member - a black cast member - specifically to play Obama. Ridiculous.
vlzspbHi Steve.
Why are you obsessed with the Obamas doing things White American pols have been doing for generations? You describe how MO "began working as go-between for Mayor Daley's Machine. She has since enjoyed the kind of vague but well-paid career made possible by affirmative action." You probably know better than I do that the Daley machine's purpose for many decades was to benefit Irish Americans at the expense of both Black Americans and Protestant White Americans. You only get bothered when they have to row in a few Blacks. I agree with you that there's no justification for Affirmative Action for Hispanic immigrants, but Black Americans start with disadvanyages resulting from both centuries of racism, which improved White Americans position, and from the do-it-yourself affirmative action by White ethnic groups in some northern cities that the Daleys exemplified. And is MO the first lawyer to like money?(Incidentally, may I plug Geoge V. Higgins's novels re Boston.)
I like the comparison with Cherie Blair; it's probably unfair to MO, but so what? BTW, is this the first primary contest between 2 lawyers who are both married to lawyers?
Three points that interested me:
1) She worked as a lawyer in private practice for 3 years, then abandoned that for government work. My guess being that in those first three years she quickly realized, after possibly failing the bar exam once, that she had no big money future in law, so she shifted to politics.
2) Her position at the University of Chicago seems not to have changed much over the 9 years (1996-2005) that she worked there. Then, as soon as her husband was elected senator, she got a big whopping promotion with a big whopping pay raise.
3) She spent her life being overshadowed by her 'much smarter' brother, who is now...a Nobel laureate? A Fortune 500 CEO? Nope, he's the head basketball coach at NCAA "powerhouse" Brown University.
But none of that matters as much as her sense of racial victimization.
You made a very good point, Steve - perhaps the most important point of all: Barack Obama is supposed to heal the "racial divide" in this country, yet he can't even seem to heal it in the woman who shares his bed.
Cognoscenti refer to Toni Blair's wife by her maiden name - Greedie Boot. Not a nice girl, either.
Another 1,200 words about the qualifications of a senator's WIFE?
Steve, I'm starting to think that you got the wrong memo. Barak is the Obama running for president.
She did use the phrase "really proud" not just "proud", which might have been contextually meaningless (as in, synonymous with "actually proud") when Michelle said it; nonetheless, her defenders are arguing that it was an enhanced pride she felt for the first time.
Interestingly, the (conservative elements) in the MSM finally seem to be tentatively starting to bring up some of Steve's ideas. Yesterday, both on Fox News and his radio show, Hannity (who I normally can't stand) started bringing up BO's and MO's racialist views and asked if this is a problem (e.g., black racialist church, MO's thesis and speeches, etc.). As usual, Steve, you get to the story months ahead of the MSM!
Green mamba: I seem to have seen a news headline saying that SNL was looking for a cast member to play Obama.
Truth, if you want evidence that the position of the First Lady is important, you could look at Obama's opponent.
Steve, you share something in common with the top executives of Univision: You both like McCain a lot more than Obama!
Check out who they are donating too:
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=emp&employer=univision&search=Search
McCain is by far their #1 guy at 16,000+, with all democrats put together at $8000, but not a penny to Barack Obama.
Most physicians don't make that kind of money. It's despicable that a no talent hack like Michelle Obama commands that kind of money.
Also, I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the whole Rezko scam, where Obama was taking kickbacks from an Iraqi Brit, which enabled him to purchase a huge mansion far beyond his means.
"Truth, if you want evidence that the position of the First Lady is important, you could look at Obama's opponent."
Yes, well it has taken exactly 233 years for the first laday to be 'important' as you say because Hillary Clinton is the first one to actually run for president.
Yes, well it has taken exactly 233 years for the first laday to be 'important' as you say because Hillary Clinton is the first one to actually run for president.
Yes, but whaddaya wanna bet that it won't take another 233 years for the next one to run? My guess is it won't even take another 60. The behavior/views of a first lady might not matter much, or they might provide a lot of insight into the views and motivations of a candidate who otherwise has been able to avoid exposing his political views to the public.
Well, even if Obama manages to hide is ideas for now, eventually they will get out. And apart from the damage his ideas will cause in a First World country, they will probably be soooo boring.
Steve --
I am really disappointed that you included in your VDARE piece your rank speculation that Michelle Obama failed the July 1988 Illinois bar exam. You have no proof that she did. I thought you were a "scientific" thinker. Now I wonder how many other "facts" you make up without any support whatsoever.
In a previous comment, I clearly explained to you why it could take many months for someone to be admitted to a state bar. For example, after moving to NYC, I took the February bar exam, but was not admitted until December, almost one year later. For some reason -- b/c it did not fit your ideological agenda (which you frequently disclaim)? -- you ignored this information, and decided that she must have failed the bar exam.
Truly a despicable act of intellectual fraud.
I agree with you that there's no justification for Affirmative Action for Hispanic immigrants, but Black Americans start with disadvanyages resulting from both centuries of racism, which improved White Americans position, and from the do-it-yourself affirmative action by White ethnic groups in some northern cities that the Daleys exemplified.
This is typical liberal white supremacist nonsense, starting with the assumption that blacks are white people with black skin. I'm referring of course to the position underlying your statement that blacks "start with disadvantages" - unless you were referring to the many disadvantages (relative to whites) in behavioral genetics with which blacks are saddled, which I sorta doubt.
Let's discuss these disadvantages, yes? Who made white Americans rich? Better yet, if we go far back enough, we'll find the world's first rich guy - who gave him an unfair leg up? Yahweh? Life is not a video game. We don't all start with 3 lives and 1000 credits. The advantages whites enjoy were scrounged from the friggin dirt by their ancestors. One is not "disadvantaged" to have not been born with a successfully scrounging ancestor.
As for the benefits of exploitation, they're all enjoyed by blacks now. According to La Griffe du Lion, affirmative action takes roughly 2 grand each year from the average white, in order to put roughly 4 grand into the pocket of the average black. Hoo, boy! There's some white privilege for you!
The "historical disadvantages of blacks in America" myth depends on unfounded assumptions and some pretty distorted history. E.g., it depends on comparing apples to oranges. Compare oranges to oranges - American blacks to African blacks - and a very different story emerges; nowhere in the world is there a large black population as wealthy as American blacks. In other words, American blacks are spectacularly fortunate, and this great luck is used to bash whites over the head. Poor babies - if only their ancestors hadn't been sold (by black Africans) to whites! Then they'd be living in mother Africa (most of them would never have lived at all, actually) in the lap of luxury.
This isn't the place to assume black-white equality, then pile a bunch of other crap on top that "naturally follows" from that fallacious assumption.
"Let's discuss these disadvantages, yes? Who made white Americans rich?"
Yeah, I agree with you Svigor. I mean these rich white Americans were saddled with 'employees' from whom they received forced 16 hour labor days from cradle to grave, and then their children got the same from the children of employees...all for the price of a few rags, a hay bed in a barn with the animals and a handful of pig guts every other day: Who the hell could be expected to turn a profit of that?
One is not "disadvantaged" to have not been born with a successfully scrounging ancestor.
Make that "without".
P.S., lots of whites and blacks immigrated to the U.S. after manumission. The justification for the gubmint robbing these white pockets to fill these black ones via AA is what, exactly?
Whoops, never mind the "without" thing, missed the "not" in there while rereading.
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