CSotD: His better half
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Are we at the point where I can just say "Michelle," the way we once just said, "Jackie"?
Michelle and the girls have been visiting South Africa, and it's hard for anyone over 50 not to recall JFK's quip, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, " except that the president didn't even come along on this one. Nor does he seem to have been missed.
At least his absence didn't push the visit down to a level where it was beneath the notice of Madam & Eve and Jeremy "Jerm" Nell.
To address M&E first, I'd note that the panhandlers have only been back in view since the end of the World Cup, and I think there has been some disappointment that the uplift and positive images of that event so quickly fell out of the world's field of vision, as graft and attempts to stifle press freedom have taken over center stage.
Having Michelle in town certainly doesn't rise to the PR level of hosting the World Cup, but if that knock on the door makes the family stop bickering and shove the mess behind the sofa for a moment, I suppose that's something.
And that thought dovetails with Jeremy Nell's cartoon, which reminds us that the new South Africa does indeed have a best foot it can put forward. Now, it's more than a bit of a stretch to suggest that anybody would seriously compare Obama and Mandela, but he's spot-on that there is a difference between slogans and achievement and that Obama has disappointed a great many people.
Still, Mandela was first arrested in the struggle five years before Obama was even born, and the real comparison would be with Dr. King.
As it happens, the 1996 documentary "Mandela" was on TV a few days ago, and I was struck by the contrast with our own civil rights struggle.
You can, of course, find plenty of contrast between the two movements, beginning with the fact that, by the time Dr. King became involved, there was already a rising tide against segregation that simply needed to harnessed, whereas Mandela entered an arena where the oppressors were in much firmer control on all levels.
But that large factor aside, the most profound difference is in legacy: We still celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday as a holiday for black Americans, whereas Madiba seems to be warmly embraced by a much wider swatch of South Africans. It is as if they recognize that he did not simply lift a burden from the backs of black South Africans but from the entire nation.
It is a failure of Dr. King's work that Americans persist in seeing him as a man of importance to the black community rather than to the entire nation, and it may be some sign of growing maturity that the bulk of the country now seems to view the Obamas as the First Family and not just the First Black Family. It isn't a matter of pretending to be color blind or of denying the significance of race, but, rather one of recognizing that what advances one facet of the community is to be embraced as an advancement of the entire community.
South Africa, for all its history and for all its current challenges, is much closer to that goal than is the US.
Meanwhile, getting back to Michelle's visit, there is a very real question of "Who needs the president?" and I have a suspicion that she can be more effective when she travels alone.
She brings with her a physical presence and a capacity for substance that, freed of the need to make policy statements, provides a public relations advantage we haven't seen before, not in Jackie, who had the presence but not the depth, nor in, for example, Ros Carter, who seems to have had the depth but clearly had no interest in becoming a public figure.
Bill Clinton famously promised America a two-fer, but it quickly developed that they weren't so much of a team as they were a pair of clashing egos, and that Hillary's interest in actively creating policy was a conflict of interest and a distraction. The Clinton White House had many achievements, but they seem to have come about despite the First Marriage and not because of it.
By contrast, Michelle Obama appears to have found a niche where she can be both comfortable and effective.
If nothing else, it's interesting that, when she goes overseas, the resulting cartoons take a wry poke at her hosts and at her husband, but not at her.
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