Maureen Dowd is an expert on marriage in the same way that Charles Barkley is an expert on winning NBA championship rings. In this week's edition of Hot Jamz with MoDo, Our Lady of the Pop Culture References peers into her scrying pool and divines the meaning of notorious Basque separatist Michelle Obama's need to sometimes go on vacations with persons who are not her husband. In a column that actually has something to sort of do with politics, Maureen's's back to telling the Obama White House what they should do. But this time the bizarre thesis of her argument isn't"Black it up!" It's "Michelle Obama is too good at being a fun mom."
She seemed to be gigging her husband a bit: "I'm going to do what I want to do. I can’t worry about whether it gives the Tea Partiers ammo or makes Democrats (including you) campaigning against the excesses of the rich look hypocritical. Even if the country is sliding into a double-dip recession, I’m going abroad to a five-star hotel on Air Force Two and give a boost to another country’s economy."
Yes, Maureen Dowd applies her legendary psychic acumen to figure out what exactly Michelle Obama is thinking when she goes off to have a nice and well-deserved vacation with her youngest child and a close-knit coterie of old family friends in a sexier and better nation with actual culture. Clearly, Michelle wishes to spite her husband! This is maybe possibly true, and if it isn't true, it ought to be. We are talking about a brilliant, elegant creature who has been forced by her husband's (dreamy) political ambitions to spend most of her time in the soulless, ugly democracy strip mall that is Washington, D.C.
But MoDo does not approve. And she explains why, though not before getting in a jab at George W. Bush, a terrible president.
And because his predecessor mucked things up so royally, President Obama’s job is ridiculously hard. But at moments when you think Michelle might make her husband toast, or better yet a martini, she’s often off on a girls' trip.
Surprise! Women are not supposed to have fun unless it is a Maureen Dowd-approved type of fun, like being a bipolar whore with nice clothes. And women who have fun together are highly suspect, as they ought to spend most of their time figuring out the answer to that age-old question, "Are Men Necessary?" Maybe Michelle Obama will write a terrible book on this subject!
When health care passed after a difficult year and the president celebrated with his staff on the Truman Balcony, the first lady was with her daughters on Broadway to see Memphis.
How awful that this "Michelle Obama" should give her children an actual childhood instead of subverting her professed desire to be a great mom in order to play sidekick to her husband. In addition, it is stupid that the message of this play is that love can transcend racial differences, and also that dancing is fun. Exposing children to live theater now will only lead to them choosing plays over Maureen Dowd's favorite vampire movies in future.
When the BP oil spill stained the White House, making the president seem so impotent that he had to make his first national address from the Oval Office, the first lady was playing with her mother and daughters in Los Angeles, staying at the Beverly Wilshire. She was taking in a Lakers game the night of his address.
How heinous that Michelle took her two daughters and their sole surviving grandparent to California, a place that is basically Mexico North anyway. How horrible that she did not immediately curtail a fun and wholesome Robinson girls' trip because BP got the the Hershey squirts all over the Gulf of Mexico.
During the campaign, Michelle tried to offset her husband’s existential detachment with familial warmth. Now that he holds the world’s loneliest office, he needs that more than ever.
Oh, wow, Maureen. You done did it again, with your lame attempt at Insight (TM).
Yes, Michelle Obama provided a warmer and more relatable face on the campaign trail than could her rock-star/professor/Jesus husband. But she's not the reason he got elected. Does Maureen Dowd think Michelle Obama still needs to be by his side when he makes every announcement about every policy decision, just so that the American Peoples will swallow their medicine? Or is MoDo personally concerned that Michelle has become too much of a GREAT MOM to be a goodly and dutiful wife to the president?
Maureen Dowd is like "The Marriage Ref" plus Dr. Benjamin Spock plus whoever the fuck wrote What to Expect When You're Expecting, times one billion. Someone give her 18 million raises and a steak dinner with Pinch, now.
Sara Benincasa bravely re-blogs Maureen every Monday, often upon an actual Black-Berry iPad tablet phone.
