Abu Wabu

Power Line looks at Michelle Wright Obama's clunky boilerplate stump message of bitterness and rage:

Michelle Obama seethes with bitterness. While she preaches the gospel according to Barack, she wears resentment and bitterness on her sleeve. It is therefore painful to listen to her. She's apparently even still angry about her SAT scores. She didn't test well in school, she explains. Somehow, she has overcome.

Mrs. Obama seeks to convey the impression -- she expands on the theme at great length -- that Senator Obama's campaign is, to borrow Joe McCarthy's formulation, the victim of "a conspiracy so immense..." It is not clear whether the Obama campaign can overcome the power of these sinister forces.

Others are commenting on Michelle's Wrighteousness.

Hugh Hewitt:

I think Michelle Obama's stump-speech message of the unfairness of "moving bars," opportunity-killing debt burdens on college graduates, families having to move away from great aunts, and the fear engulfing the "vast majority of Americans" is not going to resonate with most voters.

This is the rhetoric of resentment and victimization, and as I played her speech from May 2 on yesterday's program --and it is very similar to the speech she made the previous Friday night-- the radio audience reacted with a combination of astonishment and anger. Michelle Obama discounts all the good that is going on in the country, skips over the deep generosity of Americans, and ignores the astonishing economic and social progress made in the U.S. since the close of W.W.II as she indicts aspect after aspect of American life.

Her very grim vision chills those who do not share it, which I guess to be the "vast majority" of Americans. One caller asked that if Obama couldn't raise the spirits of his wife, how will he raise the spirits of the country? Aside from the pithiness of the remark, it illuminated that Michelle Obama sounds like Pastor Wright and Bill Ayers when talking about America, making our country sound like a land of sharks and
vultures.

Byron York:

But Mrs. Obama, the star attraction, is taking no chances. Walking onstage to chants of “Yes, we can!” and “Fired up — ready to go!” she quickly gets to the heart of her message: There are forces out there who are trying to take away everything Barack has worked for. They — she doesn’t mention anyone in particular but does refer to one “brand name politician” — are trying to win this election for themselves and thereby deny Obama the opportunity to move America to the mountaintop of hope. And they must be stopped.

“We’ve learned that we’re still living in a time and in a nation where the bar is set, right?” she tells the crowd.

“That’s right.”

“They tell you all you need to do is do these things and you’ll get to the bar — ”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you go about the business of doing those things — ”

“Yes — ”

Her husband has been doing just that, Obama explains — raising money, building an organization, winning caucuses, winning primaries, and amassing a large number of delegates. And yet he still hasn’t won, because nothing is ever enough for those unnamed adversaries.

“You start working hard and sacrificing, and you think you’re getting closer to the bar, you’re working and you’re struggling, you get right to that bar, you’re reaching out for the bar, and then what happens?”

“They raise the bar!”

“They raise the bar. Raise the bar. Shift it to the side. Keep it just out of reach.”

“Yes!”

“And that’s just what’s been happening in this race.”

Michelle Wright Obama is angry to learn that there is no affirmative action program for entry to the White House. But then, as Yuval Levin points out, Barack Wright Ayers Obama is angry about that too. He just ain't saying it as loudly as his self-Wrighteous spouse.