Fox News Struggles To Find A Line Of Attack For Michelle Obama’s Speech

Day one of the Democratic National Convention is over and now the the biggest threat to Barack Obama’s convention appearance is rising to the level set by his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama.

Michelle Obama
America. We Built That!

The First Lady has set the bar so high that the convention’s headliners, including Bill Clinton, are going to have to bring their best game in order not to be overshadowed. Her speech hit on every level – emotional, political, personal – and served as an inspirational motivating kickoff to the President’s campaign.

The speech was so good, in fact, that Fox News was sweating bullets in an effort to find something to complain about. Immediately following Michelle’s address, Chris Wallace came on and described her performance as “masterful” before descending into criticism that it was negative and focused too heavily on government solutions. Then Fox turned to Bret Baier who also began with praise for Michelle as a prelude to bashing the segment in her speech where she said that the President didn’t “care if you’re a Democrat or Republican.” Baier perpetuated the myth that Obama is a divisive figure when in fact it is the GOP that has engaged in unprecedented obstructionism. Finally, the world’s worst pundit, Dick Morris, published an editorial on Fox News online that conceded that Michelle’s speech was powerful, but asserted that she was selling herself and not the President.

Expect one or more of those themes to be sprinkled throughout Fox’s programming on Wednesday until they find some mud they think will stick. One desperate smear attempt is already taking shape in the form of a soundbite plucked from a DNC video where the narrator says…

“We are committed to all people, we do believe you can use government in a good way. Government’s the only thing that we all belong to. We have different churches, different clubs, but we’re together as a part of our city or our county or our state. And our nation.”

The Fox misinterpretation of that centers on the phrase “Government’s the only thing that we all belong to.” Their tortured reasoning pushes the notion that this is a message that the government owns us. However, the actual context makes it clear that the meaning of the word “belong” in this usage is not ownership, but membership. While we all have different personal associations and relationships, we are all still Americans. That’s the message of patriotic unity that Fox and other right-wing manglers like Breitbart, Malkin, and Ericksen, are trying to twist into statist slavery.

Despite Fox’s efforts, Michelle’s speech is probably going to be received positively by the vast majority of those who see or hear it. It may go down in history as the best speech by a First Lady ever. The writing was sharp and emotive. The delivery was heartfelt and exuded both strength and empathy. And the only problem with it is that it presents an enormous challenge for the remainder of the convention’s speakers to live up to. However, if Barack is worried he doesn’t show it in this picture from the White House where he watched Michelle with his daughters (and a special guest):

Watching Michelle

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4 thoughts on “Fox News Struggles To Find A Line Of Attack For Michelle Obama’s Speech

  1. The fake journalists at fox do what they always do-they spin for their republican bosses. Political propaganda for the republicans is their primary motivation and actual journalism is never in the equation-that you can count on. I saw her speech and I have to agree it was brilliant partly because it was so sincere. According to reports, MO had most of the input in that speach, in other words she put it together and wrote it herself, unlike AR’s speech last week.

  2. hi i am xiana i am 11 years old and all i want to know what i michelle obama struggles

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