In today’s Crimson, Dhruv Singhal takes on First Lady Michelle Obama, mocking her “seizure-inducing inanities” and the media’s obsession with her fashion choices.
First, let me say that his criticisms of the political media are entirely valid. All the coverage of Obama’s fashion is unnecessary. Dhruv calls this coverage “objectifying scrutiny of her every fashion decision.”
No, I’m sorry, “her every questionable fashion decision.” Dhruv can’t help himself. Later in the article, he calls Obama’s outfits “tawdry” and “undignified.” This isn’t an article about a substance-free media. This is about his visceral distaste for Michelle Obama.
Dhruv tries to hide that fact, but he can’t. This paragraph needs to be quoted in its entirety:
Perhaps it is a little crass to lament the tendency of fashionistas across the land to behave as if they were coerced at gunpoint into a compact to swoon over Mrs. Obama’s every outfit, no matter how tawdry or undignified (sleeveless may or may not be trendy—hell if I know—but it is not puritanical to value decorum). And perhaps it is a little crass to bemoan such national embarrassments as the scuttled attempt to fund Mrs. Obama’s pet project by cutting food stamp funding or her preposterous assertion that obesity is a matter of national security (if obesity is a national security issue, then quite literally anything can be a national security issue). Perhaps it is a little crass to engage in ad hominem attacks against someone whose only crime was to marry a future president. But was that really Mrs. Obama’s only crime?
Thus does Dhruv spend a hefty chunk of his column pretending to disapprove of silly right-wing attacks on Michelle Obama. But he doesn’t disapprove. He could have started with the final “perhaps it is a little crass,” and proceeded from there. But he had to get his digs in! Still, the next paragraph promises to get at the substance of Obama’s “crime.”
Shorn of a real job since her husband’s election but eager to maintain the guise of productivity, Obama has busied herself with her “Let’s Move” initiative. Perhaps it can be forgiven that every First Lady arrives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. with the expectation that she is to jettison any erstwhile frumpiness [seriously?] in order to fulfill her new role as the nation’s flagship fashion icon while fruitlessly championing some innocuous initiative. The fulfillment of this expectation is little more than a public nuisance. But when the First Lady begins to dabble in legislative activism, it contributes to a more nefarious phenomenon—the institutionalization of the Office of the First Lady as a power center in American government.
So Dhruv offers this distinction at the core of his argument: There are First Ladies who fruitlessly champion innocuous initiatives. Then there are First Ladies who “dabble in legislative activism,” which is “nefarious.” One wonders where the line is between championing something and being an activist for it. Apparently the line is a partisan one: Dhruv scorns a litany of Democratic First Ladies, conveniently neglecting Betty Ford (well, she’s a liberal anyway, right?), Nancy Reagan (Just Say No!), and Laura Bush (literacy advocate and international emissary).
Furthermore, I really don’t see why the First Lady’s “unelected status” is cause for complaint. There are thousands of people in positions of influence in Washington who were not elected, and many thousands more who were not even appointed by anyone who was elected. Surely the institutionalization of the First Lady’s office is not as “nefarious” as the institutionalization of lobbyists and the revolving door.
The reality is that we will never know what “degree of influence” a particular First Lady (or future First Man) possesses. Spouses get unique access to the most important decision-maker of all, even more access than David Koch. Should we bug the president’s bedroom to make sure there’s no unelected, unappointed influence going on? This can’t be what Dhruv means, but one struggles to find, then, what he really does mean. He admits that the First Lady has no “formally-mandated power” but then promptly suggests that Michelle Obama has “a formal role in the governing of this country.”
Dhruv ends with an attack on an alleged hypocrisy: Michelle Obama wants influence, but also wants to remain free from criticism. There is no evidence for the latter claim, so Dhruv puts it in the passive voice: “we are frequently urged to keep a presidential candidate’s family off limits.” Does he really think that a serious-minded dissent from Michelle Obama’s agenda would be deemed “off limits”? That seems very unlikely to me. What people deem off limits is the sort of blind animus propagated by the right-wing media, who find Michelle Obama uniquely irritating. The point of the whole “family is off limits” routine is that even presidents are entitled to some privacy in their personal lives. So, criticism of the president’s date nights? Off limits. Criticism of the First Lady’s initiatives? In bounds.
