YES, WORDS DO MATTER-- CORPORATE MEDIA MANUFACTURES A SCANDAL: MICHELLE OBAMA

By Noah

Today's media atrocities: Something funny is going on with a quote from Senator Obama's wife Michelle. Media outlets across the land are running with a quote from her that says "... for the first time I am proud of my country". She is being taken to task for this. However this line has been, as usual, taken out of the context it was originally presented in. She said it in the context of hope making a comeback in our country, after the nightmare that we have been stuck in since the 2000 "election" or before.

She is talking from the perspective of the political world, and, I bet, a cultural world that she grew up in too. Both she and her husband are very accomplished but it must be almost overwhelming to feel the love, as it were, of 10,000+ people a night showing up to hear what your husband has to say, to listen, and to vote in such huge numbers, for your husband over someone who, until a few weeks ago, was so much better well known. Also, she may be a highly educated lawyer from two top schools, Princeton and Harvard, but, as we have seen many times before, spouses of political candidates are not the smoothest people when it comes to public speaking. Even such a smoothie and a sharpie as Bill Clinton, no less than a former President, mis-speaks.

Sometimes, it just comes out all wrong. Sometimes, it comes out partially wrong. Sometimes, we know what they mean anyway. I think the latter applies to Michelle Obama  but, there is something else. The media is using three versions of the "quote." All three vary in connotation, color, or nuance. Words do matter. I’ll get to the third version later but, here are the other two. Same speech, two different cites:

1. From Madison, WI.- "…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 am really proud of my country."

2. From Milwaukee, WI.- same quote, except she omitted the word "really."

The use of the word "really" connotes prouder than usual. It’s a subtle but real difference. Either way, she didn’t express herself all that well and has had to clarify her statement. I seriously doubt that she meant to convey that she had never been proud of her country before. It isn’t the first time something like this has occurred and it sure won’t be the last. Half the time, the current President can barely speak at all, but, although we cringed, we knew what he meant when he talked about putting food on one’s family. What’s shameful in this case, though, is not so much what Michelle Obama said, but, how the media has gone out of its way to blow it up, truly trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.  You see, it just so happens that they either use the non-really version from Milwaukee, or, and this is seriously damning, they use the version from Madison, with the word "really" edited out, no doubt to sharpen their axe. It wouldn’t fit their righty agenda to use the "really" version. No. They chose to go all the way and use  a non-really version even if they had to manufacture it because that connotes the worst meaning! Chris Matthews used the non-really, unedited version, as did the Boston Herald and others. CNBC and numerous others used the edited version. You can even hear and see the edit. No one is going to convince me that this was an accident or that the media didn’t know about different versions being available to them. And, if it was just a glitch, they would have fixed it before running with it.

Which brings us to version three! Guess who has that one. Yep. FAUX NEWS. Their E.D. Hill just went and made up her own version. We don’t need no stinking edits! We don’t need no stinking reality! We’re FAUX NEWS! Hill’s version, that she pulled out of who knows where, is so altered that, unlike the other news outlets that simply edited the film or showed the non-really version, hers can’t even be shown. It can only be read, so here it is. The quotes are all hers and have nothing to do with reality. "I have never been proud of America, really, until now." Heaps on more of the negative, doesn’t it? Well, at least this newsbunny used the word ‘really.’ Will such devious, heinous news slimers ever be held accountable for their Goebbels-esque treachery? Don’t hold your breath. Roger Aisles will give this bozo a raise.   

What’s at the core of this is that the Repugs and their noise machine are so desperate to grab on to anything at all to save their sorry asses, that they are stooping to even this, something so blatant. This kind of thing, the Hitlerian Big Lie often works on a gullible public, so get cynical folks, get very cynical. Get mad as hell about your media  spewing bullshit at you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There will be media distortion to come. Senator Obama is now clearly the front-runner and is now the number one target of corporate interests everywhere. The slamming has begun. The twisting of the truth and warping of reality has begun. As an example, today's Wall Street Journal headline claims Senator "Obama Holds Off Clinton In Wisconsin." Holds Off???? He clocked her. He wiped the floor with her would be far more accurate! Beat her by an incredible 17 points! The people are speaking and the corporate masters don’t like it one bit. They fear Obama greatly. He is an unknown to them. He is a true phenomena, from the ground up, not the top down. They know that barring something unforeseen, Senator McCain can’t beat him, which brings us to tonight’s breaking news about McCain and some lobbyist corruption and maybe a personal dalliance with a 40 year old female lobbyist 8, count ’em 8, years ago. The New York Slimes broke this story the day after Senator Obama clearly became the all but unstoppable front-runner for the Democratic nomination and the Presidency itself. Strange timing; the NYS had the story back at Christmas and held it until now. Why? They had the story before the primaries even began. They had it tucked away in case of emergency. Tonight, they broke the glass. Could this be the start of an effort to dump McCain and replace him with Romney or Bloomberg or Jeb, or some other friendly, pro-business corporatist fascist loving creep? [Right wing propagandists-- who only 2 weeks ago were attacking McCain as the End of Days of Conservatism-- are already accusing the Times of sitting on the story to saddle the GOP with an unelectable turd. That may well be the effect but it was McCain himself who begged the Times to not go with the story for months and months.] Stay tuned. We may have been cursed to live in interesting times, or is it just 1984?  

Michelle Obama, America's next First Lady:




UPDATE: OLBERMANN NOTICED

He saw the way GOP shill Bill O'Reilly was trying to twist this into right-wing propaganda and he called him on it.