So members of the right are using a trip to Spain to again smear First Lady Michelle Obama as uncaring and extravagant.
You'll forgive me for not being impressed but I've seen it before. Remember the rumor spread about her supposedly eating lobster, caviar, and champagne at the Waldorf-Astoria while Obama was preparing for the third Presidential debate in 2008? It didn't happen. Not that it matters, however. After all, why let truth stand in the way of a good rumor.
But there is a new thing in this recent smear. Members of the right, such as Rush Limbaugh, have compared Mrs. Obama to Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France during the French Revolution who was executed for crimes against the state. It's a talking point which several have repeated so don't think the comparison is spontaneous or by accident.
Antoinette's name is byword for uncaring extravagance mostly due to the legend of her comments regarding why the people of France were raising hell. Allegedly when she was told that they have no bread, she remarked "let them eat cake." The story symbolized her supposed nasty attitude regarding her subjects.
And so we have members of the right now using Mrs. Obama's vacation in Spain with her daughter to spread the meme that she is just like Antoinette in the fact that she is doesn't care about people suffering from this awful climate of recession in the United States.
However, I would advise those on the right to tread lightly with this comparison. While it is not known for a fact that Antoinette said the "let them eat cake" comment, it is known that the rumors were used to make her public enemy number one in France. She was not popular for a multitude of reasons, one of which because she was foreign (Austrian). Therefore any negative rumor told about her gained immediate popularity
So subsequently when she, her husband Louis XVI, and the rest of their retinue were arrested, she was subjected to many indiginities by the French mobs hungry for blood including:
Certainly things are not as extreme for Mrs. Obama as they were for Antoinette the irony here is stark. Members of the right are using a historical symbol of uncaring extravagance to smear the First Lady while forgetting that this same figure became that symbol due to substantiated rumors designed to flame mobs against her.
Perhaps Limbaugh and the rest shouldn't worry about how much Mrs. Obama compares to Marie Antoinette and worry about how they compare to those bloodthirsty French mobs who demanded Antoinette's blood.
what's wrong with a hostel?
(she said sarcastically)
http://mediamatters.org/research/201008090041
The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions.
How about a million dollar date nite in NYC last year...Justify that!
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1301302/Michelle-Obama-lunches-Spains-royal-family-backlash-extravagant-holiday-continues-home.html#ixzz0w715INEc
Vacations are fine but Mrs. O has had about 8 of them in the last couple of months. Enough is enough....
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1301302/Michelle-Obama-lunches-Spains-royal-family-backlash-extravagant-holiday-continues-home.html#ixzz0w715INEc
The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions.
Michelle Obama's Presidential Credit Card Declined
http://rancornews.com/michellecredit.html
Although commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette, there is no record of these words ever having been uttered by her; they first appear in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, his putative autobiographical work (completed in 1769, when Marie Antoinette was 13), where he wrote the following in Book 6:
Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.
Finally I recalled the last resort of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat brioche."
Rousseau does not name the "great princess" and there is speculation that he invented the anecdote, which has no other sources.
Repubs are the wealthy corporate type that have homes from Paris to Dubai. Oil money and lobby money oozing out of every pore .
Where do you THINK they vacation At six Flags? Their kids at private universities cost more than the first Ladys vacation. Guess who paid for that .
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/08/michelle_obama_spain_trip_what.html
Just 8 months after the 9/11 attacks in the middle of a recession Laura Bush and her Entourage Tour Europe
Laura Bush, Entourage Tour Europe
AP Online | May 17, 2002 | SANDRA SOBIERAJ, Associated Press Writer
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) _ Thirty different outfits, 15 traveling staffers, dozens of Secret Service agents, scores of embassy personnel, seven pricey gifts, one professional hair stylist.
That's what it takes to see Laura Bush through 15 days overseas.
The no-nonsense first lady, lauded in the French press for her simple style, has appeared during this inaugural overseas mission of hers to be unreconciled to, or at least self-conscious of, the fuss of public life.
Leaving Washington on the same Air Force jet often used by Vice President …
AND...
Jenna Bush works to avoid attention on trip to Europe
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By Sandra Sobieraj, The Associated Press
PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- Jenna Bush, Secret Service code name "Twinkle," shunned the bright lights of her mother's 10-day European tour, taking pains to avoid news cameras.
In the three years since Jenna and twin sister Barbara, now 20, told their father they wanted nothing to do with his presidential campaign, neither girl has warmed to public life. "I would say probably NO," first lady Laura Bush said with a chuckle on Tuesday.
http://www.semissourian.com/story/74768.html