Michelle Obama is the most attractive aspect of Senator Obama's presidential race. She is the jewel in the crown of a beautiful and exemplary family, the kind of family that "family values" Republicans such as myself are supposed to revere. The fact Michelle Obama is Senator Obama's wife is one very good reason amongst many to vote for him.
As a lifelong Republican conservative one of the reasons I left the Republican Party and reregistered as an independent voter was the fact that American "conservatism" seems more and more made up of pigs who wouldn't know what gentlemanly behavior consists of if it bit them in their "fleshy parts," as Bertie Wooster might put it.
As the child of American missionaries living in Europe, I was sent to British boys' schools. This was in the early 1960s. Part of my parents' conservative evangelical ethos and what I was told was the way gentlemen behaved -- when being instructed in the ways of British politeness -- was that a certain respect is due to mothers in particular and women in general. This respect is not to be confused with the feminism that was about to emerge a few years later in the 70s, but nevertheless there was a certain code of honor that it was "just not on" to breach.
We stood when a lady entered a room, and never talked to a woman with our hands thrust into our pockets. If a boy wanted our headmaster to become truly furious with him the shortest route was to show disrespect to the headmaster's wife and/or to any of our other female teachers, let alone to the "domestic staff." In short: the definition of being a conservative in those days was to be polite.
Republicans used to call themselves conservatives. Today the Republicans unleashing a series of vile and stupid lie-based attacks on Michelle Obama have eschewed and/or forgotten, both the traditional lessons of gentlemanly behavior and any code of honor let alone a post-feminist achievement-based respect for women.
Enter the rude thugs:
Conservative columnists accuse Michelle Obama of being "unpatriotic." They say "she simmers with undigested racial anger." A blogger circulated unfounded claims that Michelle Obama gave a speech about "whitey." FOX News called her "Obama's baby mama," a derogatory term for a black unwed mother. The National Review called her "Mrs. Grievance." From Rush Limbaugh to the most obscure local right wing talk radio host, Michelle Obama is mocked and often in none too subtle racist tones.
Today's Republicans are neither gentlemen (in the old Bill Buckley or George Herbert Walker Bush mold) or enlightened. Their presidential candidate -- McCain -- is a perfect match for the cads lying about Michelle Obama. Having abandoned the mother of his children in her hour of need because she was disfigured in a car accident, having run around on her after he came back from Vietnam, and then, finally, having chased down and acquired both a $100 million fortune and a young blond along with it, McCain is hardly a poster boy for the traditional values the Republican Party used to at least say it represented.
Now McCain's allies, from the National Review, to the morons at FOX News let alone the hosts of talk radio shows, are lining up to throw mud on Michelle Obama. They are a perfect match with the misogynist cad McCain.
This whole crew would be a much better fit in the woman-baiting beer halls of fascist prewar Spain or Italy than in either the old politics of the Republican Party (William F. Buckley are you spinning in your grave?) or the kind of conservatism (with all its imperialist and patriarchal flaws notwithstanding) that I grew up with in the old school of both evangelical belief and my British school.
In the attacks on Michelle Obama the glaring reality of the utter hate-filled moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party and its supporters is apparent. These liars and bullies are all about seeking power through any means. Having failed miserably to govern for the last eight years, having gotten us into a war-of-choice -- in which, by the way, my honorable Marine son fought bravely -- they now turn to character assassination of an outstanding mother, woman, executive and yes I dare use the term, Lady.
I have this to say to my old friends on the Republican right: you are not gentlemen, (or ladies) either because you are part of these attacks yourselves, or because you are not standing up and denouncing them. Shame on you.
And the fact that the arcane term "gentleman" means nothing to you these days -- from the punk editors of the sniveling National Review on up to the half-baked nitwit "conservatives" braying on talk radio and FOX News, is all of our loss. You have made America poorer.
Michelle Obama has more class, intelligence and civility in her little finger than the sputtering mass of prejudice, lies and bullshit that the Republican Party and it's supporters has become. Thank God for our next First Lady!
Michelle Obama brings intelligence, humor, wit and above all a straightforward manner, to this country we desperately need. She is noble and beautiful. She is the best of the American story. Her smear-grubbing critics deserve to be whipped.
Since we can't do that literally (the way my old headmaster would have -- "six of the best, trousers down"), lets give them what they so richly deserve in the voting booth this November.
Once and for all: may the smirking thugs fail and fail so miserably that it is going to be a long time before this sort of scum is allowed to crawl out from under the slime rock again by any political party.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back