iCarly. uRacist.

iCarly! iDance!

Lady M: uRock!

Before we get to that though, there’s a little clean up required on aisle 3. It’s the result of ongoing fallout from Lady M’s interview with gal-pal Gayle (note to self: never hire an inexperienced hack - even if she is your BFF’s BFF - for a job requiring a professional hack). We had to call in the A-team to squash all of the hateful, racist rightwing rants our Gayle King blabfest generated.

In retrospect I suppose we would have been better advised to skip the whole defensive “I’m not an angry black woman” denial thing. Since Ms. Jodi’s book was basically good press,  some people think that the Won’s are now simply making lemons out of lemonade. Especially since it was Big Guy who started this whole mess by “announcing” Lady M was an “angry black woman” in the first place. Indeed some have gone so far as to suggest that the thin-skinned Wons are in the process of creating a textbook example of counterproductive PR.

We don’t really need any more lemons around here.

So that’s why we called in the big guns. Round one was fired yesterday by one of our professional  journ-o-lists at the WaPo. Kathleen Parker used her sharp wit and pen to really put it to the narrow-minded, racists out in fly over who have had the unmitigated gall to accuse Lady M of being an “angry black woman” - which is clearly racist code for, umm, being an angry black woman. Kathleen set the pompous liberal outrage meter on “hypersensitive” as she waved her sensor over the people who dare criticize Lady M’s demeanor.

It isn’t hard to find evidence of racial undertones in these anonymous missives… Comment threads on right-wing blogs frequently feature hateful, racist remarks about the first lady. They don’t deserve a pica of my column space, but suffice to say, they need no translation.

Meanwhile, what isn’t said explicitly by “prominent” people is often implied.

Or if not implied, possibly inferred – by Kathleen and her friends.

Indeed, it may be that this trope has evolved from the swamp of the blogosphere, where anonymous trolls say despicable things from the cowardly comfort of their subterranean wormholes.

By which she means the rightwing blogosphere swamp. In the interest of being fair and balanced though, there have been some “tropes” that have evolved from other people’s swamps as well:

   

It may be easy for fortunate whites to say they’ve always been proud of America, though they’re probably lying.

It is less easy for someone whose ancestors were slaves and whose own parents remember when blacks couldn’t vote and were lynched for trying in some parts of the country.

I dunno: Allen West has always been proud of his country. Butt then, he’s an Uncle Tom. Or an Oreo. Or something.

Given that history, one can forgive a few ill-chosen words uttered in an emotional moment.

Sure, that’s right.  Just ask Juan Williams.

Other than that, I think Kathleen did a good a job at playing the race card. At least as good as a blonde woman can do. Still, I think the Reverends would be proud.

Ah’ve got a pocket full of race-aces Al, how ‘bout you?

And lest you forget, Kathleen also opined in a previous column:

It takes courage to swim against the tide of know-nothingness that has become de rigueur among the anti-elite, anti-intellectual Republican base. Call it the Palinization of the GOP, in which the least informed earns the loudest applause.

The left demonstrates their new civility standard: it’s the daily double

She talked about the Palinization of the GOP in the context of calling Herman Cain out as a moron – in a non-racist way of course. Then she proceeded to hand Newt a left-hand compliment, calling him a

a populist professor — a bombastic smarty-pants Republicans can call their own.

If you’re one of the stupid people (i.e. an R-word), he sounds smart (per MoDo)

Butt just to summarize the current allegation, Kathleen reminds us:

Like every woman I know, black or white, I’ve watched Mrs. Obama with respect, admiration and arm-envy. Every woman.

And there you have it: proof positive that if you don’t admire Lady M, you must be a racist. Because every woman Kathleen knows admires Lady M. EVERY woman. How fortunate for Ms. Parker; she dwells in a very special world (H/T Pauline Kael) that’s free of racism.

Now then, on a lighter note: we went to Hayfield Secondary School in Virginia for a special screening/promo of Lady M’s upcoming guest appearance on iCarly. It was a lot of fun. We did a little “random dancing” which I guess is a thing on the show.

She received kudos for her dancing, as well as her acting skills:

Her acting skills also drew praise. The cast was impressed with Obama's ability to deliver her lines in the compressed time they had to shoot the scenes.

Acting happy to be here, ya’ know?

"She has good comic timing in real life, too," Cosgrove said

                                            H/T iOTW

In addition to dancin’ Lady M did a Q&A session with the students:

During a question-and-answer session with students, Obama drew a handful of playful boos when she was asked about school lunches and talked about legislation she and her husband supported to add more vegetables to the school lunch program.

Hard to believe, I know. Booed by a group of privileged kids in Alexandria, VA! Oh sure, they claimed that their booing was directed towards the crappy food that Lady M, Big Guy and the SEIU joined together to serve them in place of the burgers and fries they use to get. Butt I think we all know: it’s really racism.

Anyway, Nickelodeon, January 16. Don’t miss it!

iCarly. uWatch. uBarf.

Our Run-Away Election Campaign

Our first round of designer Runway To Win Obama-gear has hit the streets! And just look at the time, creativity and effort that has been poured into these products by our big name designers!

                   

Tracy Reese, Narciso Rodriguez

                     

          Rachael Roy, Diane von Furstenberg

                     

           Rufus Wainwright, Beyonce (with an assist from Tina Knowles)

And then there’s this lovely scarf (only $95), designed by Lady M fave, Thakoon Panichgul:

 

Although there has been some concern and discussion over whether the pattern is actually the abstract depiction of a cotton boll:

          

Exhibits A and B in the case of WTF v. Thakoon

…in which case of, course, it would have to be deemed racist and pulled from the shelves. We’re having Ricky Holder’s Justice Department look into it, butt early indications are that  Thakoon will be cleared of all charges by noon today as long as he agrees not to carry  a "deadly weapon" near a polling place until 2012.”  Oh, and they want him to drop the “koon” part of his first name.

In other campaign news, Big Guy held a campaign event forum for “Insourcing American Jobs” in the East Room on Wednesday.  Unfortunately, many of the invited attendees seemed to have been unexpectedly busy and unavailable at the last minute. There were actually more members of the press than business leaders.

The cheese sits alone

The Unnamed-leading-GOP-candidate-bashing part just broke out spontaneously, right after Big Guy’s plea to the business leaders who did bother to show up to bring the jobs home, NOW!.

Butt if I can get back to mixing fashion with campaigning for just a moment: Big Guy is not the only one running a fashion boutique to raise campaign dollars. That edgy Rick Santorum has his own gig going too: for a $100 donation you can own one of those timeless sweater-vests made popular once again by Rick. Multiple colors available.

h/t weaselzippers

I’m not sure where the proceeds from Rick’s sweater vest proceeds will go, butt as we discussed yesterday the proceeds from Lady M’s fashion glam-o-rama is designated for the  Obama Victory Fund. Some on staff are worried that may be a moot point if there’s any accuracy to a disturbing story currently circulating from U.S. News about what Americans fear the most (hint: Americans 2-1 Fear Obama’s Reelection).

Butt don’t worry, Lady M will be hitting the campaign trail soon. And she has her way of persuading people to do what she wants:

Additionally, we’re having Ricky look into the legality of, ah, detaining certain people (just through the election).  These are people - bloggers primarily - who appear to be disturbing our peace by refusing to be persuaded enough.

So now you see why it’s necessary to make sure that Ricky keeps his job as Attorney General at least through next November.

He’s one half of our super-secret weapons team to Win The Future, through any means necessary. Ricky will be heading up our redistricting efforts across the country.

And Lady M will be in charge of injecting race into every other attack on Big Guy.

With a team like this, I don’t think we have anything to fear. In fact, the only thing we have to fear is the veneer itself.

Obama: WTF since 2008

Standby: Big Guy’s giving another non-campaign speech in the East Room as I speak!

So far: We’ve done a lot, butt we’ve got to do more. And I need to have more authority to do more – if the Congress of No will just give it to me. Butt don’t worry: I won’t use this authority. Unless I have to.

More tomorrow.

Linked By: NOBO2012 on The Daily Caller, Thanks!

Run-a-way Win: It’s all Legal

You probably don’t remember Anna Wintour’s proposed solution to concerns about the sustainability of the American fashion industry way back in 2009. She was concerned that  steep retail markdowns (sales, for those of you in fly-over) were resulting in huge decreases in profits. So she proposed this solution:

"Could someone lead a committee that would make ground rules for retailers when the discounting starts, and then all the retailers can agree to it?" When CFDA President Diane von Furstenberg pointed out, "That's illegal," Wintour said: "Is that something we can change? We have friends in the White House now."

Crony-capitalist wannabe, Anna Wintour, arrives at the Big White for dinner with her best friends

Who knew “collusion” was illegal (well, besides smarty pants Diane von Furstenberg)?  After all, how can you expect a fashionista like Anna to know anything about the law? Same goes for Lady M.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson: Harvard Law, 1988

Well, okay then: no coordinated sales. Butt our BFFs in fashion have banded together (legally, this time, I think) to create an entire new line of fashion-forward apparel to be offered exclusively on our Victory 2012 reelection site.  We proudly announce another historic first!

Never before in the history of the Republic have so many of the deluded come together to support so much fantasy with so little talent.

And speaking of talent, the designers contributing in-kind to this inspired campaign include  MO faves Marc Jacobs, Narciso Rodriguez, Jason Wu, Alexander Wang, Rachel Roy, Tory Burch, Joseph Altuzarra, Rag & Bone, Tracy Reese and Diane von Furstenberg along with a whole bunch of wannabes from Project Runway.  

Project Runway winner Christian Siriano displays a shoe he designed specially for MO

Here’s how it works:

The clothing industry's top 22 designers favored by the nation's first lady of fashion, Michelle Obama, are coming together to help the Obama-Biden campaign raise money and put a unique look on the 2012 effort.

The fashion blueprint was announced on the campaign's blog:

We're launching something new, and a little different, over the next few weeks: Runway to Win, a collaboration by some of the country's top fashion designers in support of Obama 2012. In the coming weeks, we'll be rolling out Obama-inspired designs by everyone from Tracy Reese to Jason Wu to Tory Burch at runwaytowin.com. The details are still under wraps, but sign up for your First Access pass to get updates—and a first look at the new designs. Then invite your friends and family to do the same.

Is this inspired or what? Oh,and did I mention that proceeds go to the Obama Victory Fund? In case you’re wondering, that’s our inaugural party fund. I don’t know what we’ll do with the dough if, well…you know.

Campaigns have typically offered hats and T-shirts for sale, but normally they are blandly decorated with simple campaign logos. The Obama campaign, for example, already sells clothes, like a $55 hoodie and new "State of the Union Watch Party Packs" for $25 that include yard signs and buttons. The Runway to Win plan takes that whole idea to a new, Fifth Avenue level and is aimed at creating a special fashion cachet for the campaign.

I know this campaign sounds similar to the 2008 fashion-designer effort to support Big Guy: “Runway To Change”. Butt it’s totally different – hence the new name: “Runway To Win”. As some cheeky wag at Huffpo pointed out: “the tweak of one word, we think, speaks volumes as to the difference between this Obama campaign and last.” We think so too.

Anyway, I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to restock my little store with some new fashion forward campaign swag myself. So Little Mo, Little Bo, Raj and I were up all night restocking our shelves with brand new gear for the Wons reelection campaign too.

Sorry, my gear is mostly “blandly decorated with simple campaign logos.” I know it’s not in the same league as the designer stuff that will be available on Big Guy’s site, butt just as all proceeds from his Runway to Win sales will go to the Obama Victory Fund, all proceeds from sales on my site will go to a good cause too. I can’t say exactly where until after the GOP Bowl game is over.

See what you think:

Homage to Walter Mondale’s Wipeout: prelude to Jimmy Carter’s malaise

 

 

Confession: This design is recycled from 2008.

Even though I couldn’t afford to get any designs from the big names in fashion, I did manage to get some big names to model my gear. If you see any of them though, you might not want to mention it since I did promise them anonymity. And okay, they may have been under the influence of prescription drugs when they agreed to pose.

 

               

 

Super-secret gear-site here.

 

H/T Weasel Zippers

Linked By: Clarice @ American Thinker, and American Digest, and Best Snark Here on Weasel Zippers, and Basil99 on Hillary is 44, and BADBLUE, and Sue on Just One Minute, and Tweeted By Zilla of the Resistance, Thanks!

Lady M Does Damage Control: Watch It Sucka!

Well that didn’t take long; to get our lapdogs to heel, I mean.

We had the interview with Oprah-doprah’s gal-pal Gayle King lined up as of last Sunday when the NYT article about Ms. Busy-body’s book ran. Butt we needed a couple extra days to select the lovely, feminine soft peach frock, fly in our makeup artist, complete our purge, have our hair done in a soft twist and practice looking, well…not angry. We’re really wishing we’d upped the Botox dosage at our last treatment though. That usually makes for an emotionless face for at least a month.

The interview aired today on CBS This Morning. And it’s gold. By which I mean - what a great opportunity for Lady M to set the record straight about the lies in Ms. Jodi Kantor’s book.

As is often necessary in order to wave off vicious right-wing attacks, we did have to deploy the race card. Lady M said she's tired of people portraying her as the stereotypical schtrong, angry black woman. Well here, see for yourself in this special MOTUS cut of the CBS interview (H/T Fausta):

Here are just a few of the highlights from the “JUST CLEAN UP THIS MESS!” interview:

"So I've just gotten in the habit of not reading other people's impressions of people."

I’ll form my own, thank you.

 

"I love this job. It has been a privilege from day one." 

Have plane, will travel

 

"I do care deeply about my husband. I am one of his biggest allies. I am one of his biggest confidants."

“How about you just say ‘Sometimes you just have to eat your peas’.”

But she sought to put aside "this notion that I sit in meetings."

  “OK then, let’s get started. Is that remote feed operating now?”

"I guess it's just more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here," she said. "That's been an image people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I'm some kind of angry black woman."

Did Buhrack just call me an angry black woman?”

"There will always be people who don't like me," Mrs. Obama added, and said she could live with that.

Because, you know, sometimes, you just can’t help how you feel.

Mrs. Obama said that she's "just trying to be me, and I just hope that over time, that people get to know me."

Oh, they know you. Butt like you said, “there will always be people who don’t like me”

 

Asked specifically about an assertion of dissension between herself and Emanuel, now the mayor of Chicago, the first lady said she has "never had a cross word" with him.

Up to their waists in manure last October: what better place to bury the hatchet than at an organic worm farm in Chicago?

 

Who can write about what I feel? What third person can tell me what I feel?"

Current mood: Dangerous - somewhere between blue and red

"If there's communication that needs to happen, it's between staffs," she said. "I don't have conversations with my husband's staff."

 

Look, I know it’s inconvenient, meeting here…butt we’ve got some issues...

“I am one of his biggest confidantes, but he has dozens of really smart people who surround him.

Of course some of them don’t “surround” him the same way they once did.

That's not to say that we don't have discussions and conversations. That's not to say that my husband doesn't know how I feel.

 

Ooooooo! I know what that look means.

 

I mean, one thing is true that I talk very candidly to my husband about how I feel, but that's the kind of relationship we have.

 

“Let me get your chair.”

So I think Lady M managed to put this controversy to rest once and for all; schtrongly, yet good naturedly.

So remember, in politics, as in life, the rules are really very simple: if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Got that?

Menu changes Daley

Linked By: Chickaboomer, and Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and Zilla of the Resistance, and Best Snark Here on Weasel Zippers, and Blonde on News Busters, and silverdust on The Ulsterman Report, and Bluebird33 on cBS News (H/T Madame de Farge), and Blonde again on News Busters, Thanks!