Would you? Of course not. No one would. Yet, we're supposed to believe she's always riled up about something. Really?
Critics started accusing her of this kind of thing before she even moved to Washington. Chatter about her alleged attitude problem resumed recently thanks to the publication of The Obamas, a book by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor. The book describes alleged tensions in the White House between some advisers, particularly ex-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and Michelle Obama. The book describes the first lady as being initially reluctant to move into the White House and other incidents in which she supposedly chafed at the restrictions placed upon her.
"I guess it's more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman - you know? But that's been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced, that I'm some angry black woman," she told CBS News' Gayle King recently. "I just try to be me, and my hope is that, over time, people get to know me, and they get to judge me for me."
Who can forget the infamous 2008 New Yorker cover on which she was caricatured as a militant with an Afro hairstyle, toting a machine gun? When she said on the campaign trail, "For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback," conservatives seized on her comment as evidence that she was hostile toward our nation. To my ears, it seemed that she was referencing that despite the historic mistreatment of African-Americans, America had moved past all that and that it made her proud of her country. But neither I nor her critics really can say what she meant. If she could, I bet she would rephrase those campaign comments.
