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What in the HELL is Juan Williams smoking calls Michelle: Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress

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wndycty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 09:57 AM
Original message
What in the HELL is Juan Williams smoking calls Michelle: Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress
Edited on Wed Jan-28-09 10:04 AM by wndycty
This guy needs to explain this shit!

Juan Williams again baselessly attacked Michelle Obama, claiming "her instinct is to start with this 'blame America' ... stuff"
During the January 26 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, NPR news analyst and Fox News political contributor Juan Williams again baselessly attacked first lady Michelle Obama, claiming that "her instinct is to start with this 'blame America' ... stuff." Williams asserted that "(i)f you think about liabilities for President (Barack) Obama that are close to him -- (Vice President) Joe Biden's up there -- but Michelle Obama's right there." Williams continued: "(S)he's got this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going. If she starts talking, as (Townhall Magazine contributor and Weekly Standard contributing blogger) Mary Katharine (Ham) suggested, her instinct is to start with this 'blame America,' you know, 'I'm the victim.' If that stuff starts to come out, people will go bananas, and she'll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross."

Williams provided no evidence for the claims that Michelle Obama's "instinct" is to "blame America" or be "the victim," nor did he provide examples of her having "this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going." Additionally, Williams did not provide any evidence that she could be a "liabilit" or an "albatross" for Obama. Ham also smeared Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying of Michelle Obama: "(S)he's got to not drop sound bites like she did during the campaign that were not helpful to her husband, because, frankly, if you want to be an unpleasant, heavy-handed first lady, you're going to -- well, you'll end up like Hillary Clinton."

As Media Matters for America documented, Williams previously claimed that Michelle Obama sometimes uses "this kind of militant anger." During the August 25, 2008, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, referring to Michelle Obama's then-upcoming speech at the Democratic National Convention, Williams claimed: "Well, she's got to be herself, but I do not think she can go for it all out in terms of this kind of militant anger that she sometimes uses, you know. She can be, it seems, rather cynical or dismissive of people," adding, "I don't think she wants to get anywhere near the race issue, anywhere near the militance issue." Williams gave no examples of what he claimed to be "this kind of militant anger" that Michelle Obama "sometimes uses."
-snip-

http://mediamatters.org/items/200901270002?f=h_latest
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 09:59 AM
Response to Original message
1. We've started this conversation here...
Edited on Wed Jan-28-09 10:01 AM by Captain Hilts
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4925033&mesg_id=4925033

I am SHOCKED by the fact there aren't 15 threads about this and that there isn't more anger.

AND by how few know of his history of sexual harassment at the Washington Post. He had to formally apologize to the Post in 1991.
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TwilightGardener Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:01 AM
Response to Original message
2. Eh. Republicans, and sad GOP groupies like Williams, have decided to hate Michelle
a long time ago. She can spend all day smiling, with her mouth shut and eyes averted, and they'll still read "anger" or something negative into it. She can't do anything right.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:02 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. That's a tradition in the media, actually.
Go after the wife.

Even the mafia didn't do that.
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TwilightGardener Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:03 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. They didn't go after Laura Bush. Only Dem First Ladies get that treatment.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:05 AM
Response to Reply #4
5. Very true, but Nancy R and Betty F sure did. Barb Bush did not. Pat N didn't,...
Mamie not much. Lou Hoover just didn't make news.
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TwilightGardener Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:11 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. True 'nuff, but Ford had personal issues, and Nancy wasn't exactly
a warm, caring, down-to-earth person, by anyone's account.
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Shiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:17 AM
Response to Reply #6
10. I heard she was known for giving
"the best head in Hollywood" when Reagan first met her, so that's gotta count for something...
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TwilightGardener Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:20 AM
Response to Reply #10
12. Ew! Didn't need that!!
Edited on Wed Jan-28-09 10:21 AM by wienerdoggie
:rofl:
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LiberalFighter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #10
13. If she was the best back then. Then their standards weren't very high.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:34 AM
Response to Reply #10
14. More importantly, the White House staff hated her. She'd run them through...
full dress rehearsals for state dinners, etc. As if they didn't know what they were doing.

A generally vile person, right up there with Joseph P. Kennedy and Roy Cohn.
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Shiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:41 AM
Response to Reply #14
16. Oh, I know how much they hated her
I've done a bit of reading on many First Ladies - Edith Wilson was an interesting one - and Nancy Reagan was, forgive the term, a horrid she-bitch.

Always had a spark of fondness for Joseph P. Kennedy, though, despite how vile he was. He's used as a minor supporting character in an alternate history series I like - the character he deals with hates the man too, but he helps her out a little.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. I find the first ladies really interesting.
Lou Hoover could have been a good one, but wasn't. Same with Grace Coolidge. R's just keep their wives on tighter leashes.

I was watching a documentary on First Ladies in Union Station DC yesterday in a gift shop. It was interesting. I'm really tired of Carl Anthony Sfzzzz??? It was interesting to see Alida Black comment on first ladies other than ER. And I'm always fascinated by filmclips of ER holding up FDR. She's the only woman seen to do that. Perhaps the only one physically big enough to do it.
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Shiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:58 AM
Response to Reply #17
19. Grace Coolidge was an interesting woman.
Edited on Wed Jan-28-09 10:59 AM by Shiver
If, for nothing, the complete difference in demeanor between her and President Coolidge. I never really noticed it, but you're right - the R's did tend to be bit... I dunno, stricter with their wives. They didn't seem to do as much outside of the First Lady duties compared to Democratic wives.

Not always with their daughters, though. While not a first lady, Alice Roosevelt has always been a favourite of mine. I love this quote from Teddy:

"Once, a White House visitor commented on Alice's frequent interruptions to the Oval Office, often because of her political advice. The exhausted President commented to his friend, author Owen Wister, after the third interruption to their conversation and after threatening to throw Alice 'out the window', "I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.""

:rofl:
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:06 AM
Response to Reply #19
22. I've always liked that quotation also.
You have to give Ted credit for saying so.

And you have to give FDR credit for giving Eleanor a long leash also, whatever his reasons.

The death of their son took a chunk of fun out of GC for a few years.

I find the Truman marriage interesting because it's not quite what we were led to believe it was. Bess - again, like many other Dem FLs - just bailed on the White House for extended periods of time, hence all the correspondence from HST. And, boy, was she pissed when he didn't discuss something with her, like The Bomb.

Overall, Alice R was a pretty vile person also. Sad. I saw her daughter, Pauline's grave in Rock Creek Cemetery.
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Shiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:25 AM
Response to Reply #22
23. I always wondered if his reasons for giving Eleanor a long leash
had anything to do with the affair with Lucy Mercer. Their marriage was often described as one of convenience rather than love, so perhaps he didn't feel he had the right to "keep her in check" the way other presidents did their wives.

I didn't know that about Bess, HST and The Bomb. Interesting :rofl:

Alice was a horrendous bitch, yeah, but what I like abut her was that she never denied it. She was also incredibkly respectful to everyone she met, until they gave her a reason to disrespect the, regardless of their social class, skin colour or other factor. I always love the story about how she shouted a string of obscenities at the TV when Nixon quoted TR's diary in his resignation.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #23
24. Yes, Alice was one of the more honest people DC has ever seen.
I think FDR generally felt guilty-and rightfully so-about Eleanor vis a vis a lot of things. It's not really that he had an affiar, but how he did it - under their own roof, with the help of Alice, out in public, etc. At the same time he was equally shitty to his boss, Josephus Daniels, so I've always seen it as part of a larger pattern of rebellion. At the time of the '32 election he told ER to give up most of her activities and to leave her boyfriend in NY, and then ignored her depression.

But the truth is that he gave his kids-and mother-equally long leashes that they definitely should NOT have had.

He was generally, a live and let live guy. Like when his mother went to Italy in the '30s and called on Mussolini and she announced what a nice man he was. I think he realized if you try to possess people, they have a right to possess you. He wanted only the most compliant of company. Odd, because he did seem to have a thing for Eleanor. Ain't life strange?
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WinkyDink Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:16 AM
Response to Reply #5
8. Nancy Reagan was lionized by the media, and still is.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:17 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. She is NOW because of sympathy for RR being a vegetable all those years...
but she was hit very hard by the press - and rightfully so, I might add.
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uponit7771 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
7. Williams wants to be one of the cools kids, he'll say what they want to hear until they call him
...a liberal or black or something of the sort
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geek tragedy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:19 AM
Response to Original message
11. Uncle Juan. n/t
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BeyondGeography Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:36 AM
Response to Original message
15. He's a sad human being
Every time I see him, he gives the impression of having consumed one cup of poison or other.
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mod mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:56 AM
Response to Original message
18. He's a tool-simple as that!
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rocktivity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 10:59 AM
Response to Reply #18
20. Q. Which of these four do not belong?
a. hammer
b. screwdriver
c. apple
d. Juan Williams

A: (c) apple, because an apple is not a tool.

:headbang:
rocktivity
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Shiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:00 AM
Response to Reply #20
21. I was gonna say D, 'cause the others all have some kind of use...
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rvablue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:44 AM
Response to Original message
25. "End up like Hillary Clinton" heh? Sounds good to me!
That means, Secretary of State Obama in the next administration. I'd go for that!

Don't mean to make light of the lame things he said, just turning it on him.
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Beacool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:52 AM
Response to Original message
26. What a bunch of jerks for bashing both Michelle and Hillary.
Oh yeah, it would be a terrible thing if Michelle ended up like Hillary: US senator, presidential candidate and now Secretary of State.

What a horrible fate............

:eyes:
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enuegii Donating Member (624 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 11:54 AM
Response to Original message
27. Why is it...
Republican : "righteous outrage" :: Democrat : "militant anger"?

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tigereye Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 12:38 PM
Response to Original message
28. um, Juan, the Angela Davis meme failed.... didn't you get the memo?


Hate to see an NPR commentator using gossip as reporting... :eyes:
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 02:21 PM
Response to Reply #28
29. I agree on all counts here.
She's NOT Angela Davis and gossip isn't reporting. Remember that NYT article on the front page above the fold about the Clintons' marriage????? Full of anonymous sources and speculation. Ugh!
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EraOfResponsibility Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 02:26 PM
Response to Original message
30. I would like to share this comment about this very subject from jackandjillpolitics
• This makes me angry on so many levels because I know if Michelle looked like Beyonce or Halle Berry she wouldn't be talked about this way. Michelle is a dark skinned black woman and she does not fit the phenotype of a woman married to the leader of the free world, even if he is black too. And as angry as I want to be at white folks, Juan Williams not being able to hide his disdain for Michelle shouldn't be that surprising because black people don't always have a lot of love for women who look like Michelle either. You mentioned hip hop so let's ask ourselves how often we see dark skinned women in rap videos. Does it kinda grab you attention when you actually do? Michelle may be fabublous and beautiful to me, but I know how many people don't feel the same way and never will. I also know it has nothing to do with her "proud" comments. For me Michelle is how I knew Barack wasn't a phoney. She's not about bullshit so I knew her husband couldn't be about bullshit either, but many would gladly take him and leave her. If you're brown stick around, but is you're black get back.........Michelle is undoubtedly, unashamedly and therefore unforgiveably black. She is not supposed to be the kind of woman who is placed on a pedastal and the First Lady is just that. This is "Who does she think she is, how did she get that man and how can we knock her down for getting to big for her britches". Whether it's criticizing her appearance or telling her to watch her mouth, it's all designed to make her recede from a place that she never should been in the first place.

And for the record we have seen this before. Other women get this treatment, it's just that with Michelle it's more visceral becasue of the obvious racism. Hillary caught hell she never would have caught if she looked like Cindy McCain or Sarah Palin. You think Teresa Heinz Kerry could have gotten away with being so damn "foreign" if she looked like Sophia Loren? Sarah Jessica Parker's fame could not be understood by Maxim Magazine, who declared her "unsexy" because she doesn't look like their cover models. Barbara Streisand couldn't have a happy ending with Robert Redford in "The Way We Were" because he was more beautiful the she was. And it was ok for Brad Pitt to cheat on Jennifer Aniston because Angelina Jolie was prettier. Every public woman who doesn't fit our culture's narrow and unbending view of beauty get's this kind of treatment. It exists for a reason because most women don't fit it can be beaten down by it. This racism, sexism and lookism.

"Who does she think she is, how did she get that man and how can we knock her down for getting to big for her britches?"


This is exactly how I feel.
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Captain Hilts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #30
32. Michelle and Hillary are not doormats, and that's what pisses people off. I hope...
we'll be spared the standard rumors she's a lesbian because any woman who isn't a doormat for the man in her life MUST be a lesbian.

Ugh!
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Number23 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 06:36 PM
Response to Reply #30
34. I agree that racism is the issue, perhaps not so much colorism as the writer is attempting to say
Unfortunately, we do live in a country with such a narrow definition of "beauty" that's it's damn near impossible for just about anyone to attain, but especially those of us with melanin.

But the idea that somehow if it was Halle Berry the attacks would not be as bad rings somewhat untrue to me. Halle has spoken loud and long about the issues she's had to deal with being a black woman in Hollywood and you would be hard pressed to find ANYONE in the movie industry more beautiful than she is. Beautiful or not, at the end of the day she is still black and the same simple-minded way of determining what is and is not the "norm" applies to her as well as Michelle.

Because Michelle is an unabashedly brown-skinned, EDUCATED (I think that pisses some folks off more than anything else) black woman married to the President of the United States, yes I do think that in many ways she'll have to endure more vicious attacks than even Hillary Clinton endured, who's primary vice as far as conservatives was concerned was that she had the audacity to have a brain and think that she had a right to use it. But Hillary was always able to hide that beautiful brain beneath a cascade of blonde hair, which is something Michelle will not ever be able to do.

But I personally know too many people who love Michelle MORE than Barack! I think that people who hate her will be surprised by the amount of support she enjoys from the public. And anyone who thinks that either Michelle or Barack aren't used to this type of thang haven't been paying attention anyway. :)
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BuelahWitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 07:26 PM
Response to Reply #30
35. I think Michelle is an extremely beautiful woman
Not to be shallow here, but I think she's one of the most beautiful first ladies we've ever had. I'm sure that a lot of the criticism against her is racist, but the wingers also hate smart women. She strikes me as being a very warm person, as well as having brains and beauty.
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Mayberry Machiavelli Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 02:28 PM
Response to Original message
31. He's a scum sucking, bottom feeding FOX talking head.
Hey Juan, while you're busy promoting GOP Wingnut stereotypes, here's one for ya!

Handkerchief-headed Uncle Tom!
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riqster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 03:26 PM
Response to Original message
33. Williams is a GOP stooge
...and as such, is a fool at best, and traitor to his people at worst. I turn down the volume whenever this Limbaugh wannabee comes on.
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onefreespiritedchick Donating Member (846 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-09 07:36 PM
Response to Original message
36. He owes Michelle a huge apology.. n/t
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