Why Michelle Obama Shouldn't Be Proud Of America

I expect that Michelle Obama, wife of Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) will take a lot of grief in the coming days over her comment that, for the first time in her adult life, she is "proud" of America, apparently because the man with whom she sleeps is a serious contender for the nomination of one of America's two major political parties.

I won't be joining in.

As I've written before, "pride" is something one takes in one's accomplishments, what one achieves, not that which is beyond one's control. Hence, there is a conceptual problem with taking "pride" in one's skin color, or one's sex (male or female), or one's national origin, since one has no choice in such matters.

And there is certainly little about America's accomplishments in the last quarter-century or so --- she is only a few months younger than I --- in which any far Leftie like Michelle Obama can legitimately take "pride."

Here's her biography, from the campaign's website:

After high school Michelle went on to Princeton University where in 1985 she graduated with a B.A. in sociology and a minor in African American studies. After college, Michelle continued her education at Harvard Law School, where she earned her degree in 1988.

For three years after law school, Michelle worked as an associate in the area of marketing and intellectual property at Chicago law firm Sidley and Austin, where she met Barack Obama. She left the corporate law world in 1991 to pursue a career in public service, serving as an assistant to the mayor and then as the assistant commissioner of planning and development for the City of Chicago.

In 1993, she became the founding executive director of Public Allies - Chicago, a leadership training program that received AmeriCorps National Service funding and helped young adults develop skills for future careers in the public sector.

Michelle began her involvement with the University of Chicago in 1996. As associate dean of student services, she developed the University's first community service program. Michelle also served as executive director of community and external affairs until 2005, when she was appointed vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She also managed the business diversity program.

Michelle has fostered the University of Chicago's relationship with the surrounding community and developed the diversity program, making them both integral parts of the Medical Center's mission.

Those are, of course, her accomplishments, and they are probably things in which she rightly takes great pride. They indicate that, among other things, she has fed at the public trough, and promoted others to do so ("Public Allies - Chicago, a leadership training program that received AmeriCorps National Service funding"). What of America's accomplishments?

The fall of the Soviet Union? Of course, in the last, twilight days of that struggle, Democrats were challenging Ronaldus Magnus' policies. In 1980, they tried to warn us that Reagan would start a nuclear war. When Reagan liberated Grenada, they attacked. When Reagan aided the contras in Nicaragua (which now has a democratic government), they attacked. Democrats, in whole or in large part, opposed every major foreign policy initiative of Ronald Reagan.

Was Michelle Obama among those who did? It's a little hard to tell, since she wasn't as prominent then as now. But if her political ideology was then where it is now, one can only assume that she would have signed on to likes of the outrageous "Dear Commandante" letter sent by left-wing congressional Democrats to Marxist Nicaraguan dictator Manuel Noriega.

The massive economic engine which is the economy bestowed on us by Alan Greenspan and Ronald Reagan? Who knows? Michelle Obama appears to have been a participant in it in some way for a short time, but after only three years, left the private sector to feed at the public trough. But apparently, she doesn't take "pride" even in that.

So I agree. Michelle Obama should not have "taken pride in America" during her adult life. As a far-Left Democrat, she has had precious little to do with America's accomplishments during her adult life. To the contrary, her ideology demands that she hold those accomplishments in contempt.

A contempt which revealed itself in her recent comment.