Queen Moochelle’s spending, no Neimansgate here, move along.
One must ask of Ruth Marcus, perhaps the Quad Cities news establishment’s favorite opinion page columnist in that she graces both the Quad City Times and the Argus-Dispatch editorial pages, and each of the newspapers as well, to what level of hypocrisy, disingenuousness, excuse making or faze shifting will they go to, to protect the Obamas from righteous ridicule on their personal profligacy?
For Ruth Marcus, Sarah Palin’s campaign wardrobe was fair game. Are Michelle Obama’s designer clothes and critiques of her lifestyle off limits? Is there not enough material regarding the Obama’s to devote a full column to, detailing the extravagance peppered with accusations of hypocrisy? Or is expounding on such topics reserved for when it comes time to do a number on a Republican?
Now we are not talking about a tsk tsk here or a tsk tsk there about Michelle or Barry that Ruthy may have muttered on occasion. We are referring to the likes of this full fledged hit piece she did on Sarah Palin back in October of 2008, which she chose to highlight with the title Neimansgate. Of course anything with the suffix “gate” attached, in political parlance, is intended as worthy enough to bring down a presidency or aspiring presidency.
But since then we guess Ruth Marcus has grown a fashion sense, or rather philosophized a fashion lament, that was charitably unavailable to her with regards to Sarah Palin. Her philosophy is revealed in her April 9th column appearing in the QC Times (and today in the D-A). There Marcus refers to Barack Obama’s compliment of the physical appearance of Kamala Harris, California attorney general, at a fund raiser there, as “awfully dumb.” Ironically the title of the article as syndicated was Looks Matter.
In reading the entire article we could not escape the notion that her admonition was in the sense of Obama’s comment being politically embarrassing because he should have known better than to get caught making a statement that could be highlighted so easily. But she quickly moved on from the perfunctory stipulation. The bulk of the column was really about, sigh, how necessary but unfair it is for women to have to go the extra mile with regards to their appearance. The column was not an exposition of hypocrisy and sexism by the leader of liberals, it was a lament over the extra burdens of political womanhood.
But when it was Sarah Palin the story was not about the burden of keeping up appearances, it was about gauche flamboyance, segueing to righteous indignation over an official trip she made as governor of Alaska where she actually took her daughter along and shared a room with her at taxpayer expense at an expensive New York hotel. As regards campaign spending on clothes during the political campaign Marcus remarked, “what was she thinking” relevant to a time of such economic distress. Of course it was dime store levels compared to Moochelle Obama’s flagrancy. We do not need to point out to our faithful readers, but will for the record, that the economy is worse now with far more debt!
No, Ruth Marcus in her column this week could not bring herself to segue into the subject of Michelle Obama, whose wardrobe expenses and extravagance regarding her and her daughters expensive vacations, burden taxpayers with breathtaking cost and astounding arrogance. No, in Ruth Marcus’s new fashion sense the burdens of appearances are the reason for Michelle Obama to be ostentatious.
As regards critiquing family togetherness on trips it is fortunate for their productivity that liberal columnists are not troubled by consistency. In 
this August 2010 column Marcus defends against the Unfair attacks on Michelle Obama’s Spanish vacation.
But I also don’t begrudge Michelle Obama the trip, and I’d just as soon not have my First Family vacations determined by focus groups. I’m a big fan of mother-daughter — or father-daughter, for that matter — trips. I’m a big fan of foreign travel. School’s out. It can’t be that the only acceptable activity in stressful economic times is a First Family stay-cation. Stick around the White House and straighten the closets, maybe repaint a bedroom?”
Square that with the Palin column referenced above. The statement reeks of condescension as well. Welcome to the world of liberal logic and consistency, where being a liberal columnist means never having to be sorry for the hypocrisy at your core. R Mall
* This post inspired by an item in the April 8th Wall Street Journal Best Of the Web.
