On Michelle Obama and Presidential Spouses

I like Michelle Obama. She's a supremely smart and articulate individual with a genuine sense of humour. Those who know me will know that I'm always a sucker those attributes, and throw in good looks and you have me sold.

I used to like Bill Clinton. As a perpetually horny teenage boy, I found it very easy to forgive his indiscretions. Even past that, he was still a charmer, and again, I quite liked that. No more really.

There's been an increased focus on Michelle in the British press over the past few days, in light of her actively stumping for her husband. She does it well, I feel, and I won't be surprised if the Obama campaign elects to step up her role and encourage the media to focus on it.

There are some very obvious and very good reasons to do this. First of all, she's from a bona fide working class background. She speaks from the heart on matters of class, and does so well. Secondly and connectedly, she speaks to women with ambition and does so in a more honest and less patronising way than the Hillary Clinton does. Finally, she is happy with the man she married. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not. No matter how many times she wields out her increasingly cranky other half, she is not proud of the choice she made in that man. Her campaign name is "Hillary" and not "Clinton". For her Senate seat, she campaigned as Hillary Rodham for the most part, and basically rode on Bill Clinton's shame to get her party support.

I suppose you could view that latter observation as positive, rather than the negative that I deem it be. Perhaps. I couldn't disagree more. Hillary Clinton is someone who has been made to look complete chump for essentially enabling her husband's sex addiction. Does that really make her a strong person? I'd say no. If you disagree, please say and give some pretty good reasons why you do. I'll be happy to rebut all of them.

If feminists want to wax lyrical about the progress of a Clinton victory, they should look at the baggage she will bring back to White House. Probably the most shameful of public sexual histories that ever did exist, with Hillary content to continue with it. She may purport to break the "glass ceiling" by getting to the White House, but will succeed only in letting shards of glass drop along the rest of her gender.

Michelle Obama on the other hand has a genuine hand in how Barack works. She charmed him in their initial courtship. She was the primary earner in the family for a long while. She had the veto on every political ambition that her husband has ever hand. She has handled the travails of the campaign with mixture of class and gusto that is just astounding. When you examine her and her relationship with her husband, you see the true feminist dream and a genuine role model for women.

It's been said about Hillary Clinton as a positive flowing from Bill's presidency that behind every great man, there is a great woman. With Barack Obama, the following is true: Alongside a great man stands a great woman.

I know that when Barack says that he has infinite respect for his wife, he actually means it, and I'm pretty sure that when Michelle Obama stands by her man, she does it for the right reasons.

I like her.

***

Pete

PS - I'll write on Nevada tomorrow.