First Lady

I settled in last night, anxious to hear Michelle Obama’s speech. I had to sit through a bunch of others and my patience was tested at times, but I stayed awake and watched in wonder as the First Lady addressed the convention.
by Charlie Leck

Wish I was allowed to reproduce Tom Toles cartoon for today in the Washington Post. I got a terrific laugh out of it and you can take a look at it here. Toles also writes a frequent blog for the WP and this morning he posted one he calls Oven Mitt. In it he includes the following… “I didn’t used to think of Romney as reprehensible. But he’s doing a good job of changing my opinion about that as his campaign flowers and brings forth its fetid fruit.”

Toles is a brilliant cartoonist – one of the very best on the current scene. As a writer, not so much!

This particular blog zings Romney quite thoroughly for only jokingly mentioning climate change in his convention speech. It was, Toles tells us, a “real zinger aimed at Obama’s poor priorities. Imagine, wanting to work on the economy AND climate both AT THE SAME TIME!”

To further display his burning dislike of the Republican candidate, Toles goes on: “One can only hope a rising tide will sink his campaign.”

Wow! Toles has taken poorly to Mr. Romney. Well, he is a remarkable cartoonist who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for editorial cartooning; and he’s won a passel-full of other important sounding awards over the years. He’s syndicated in almost 200 papers around the country. He has also published a collection of his cartoons in six books. I follow a number of the really outstanding cartoonists, like Auth and Oliphant. Doing so usually gets my days started with a bit of an edge.

This morning, however, the morning after the First Lady’s speech, finds me in a remarkably good mood – bouncing, and with lots of energy. What a speech! This grand and beautiful woman might just carry her husband across the finish line this year. If you didn’t hear the speech, I’ve posted the video here for you (just below) and I urge you to watch it at a time when you can devote a half hour of quiet, undisturbed moments to it. The difference between this video and the live event is that you won’t get in on the wildly ebullient applause at the end of the speech that went on and on and on. If you’d rather just read it quickly, you can find a full text of it here, on the Washington Post web site.

There are, to be perfectly honest, differing views and ratings of the speech from the political columnists this morning. Those reviews generally, of course, reflect the political positions of their writers. One of the cutest columns about the speech is by the marvelous spinner of puns, Alexandra Petri (for a few chuckles, take time to read it here).

“Mayor Julian Castro gave an inspiring speech. Deval Patrick gave a pugnacious speech. But Michelle Obama reduced the audience to tears.

“The hallmark of the first lady’s almost alarming popularity is the fact that her key initiative has been to go across the country telling Americans that their kids are too fat, and 64 percent of Americans still view her favorably. In contrast, I once mistook someone’s child for a beached whale, gently, a single time, and now I can’t show my face in Cleveland. I am just saying, Michelle Obama has a power I do not understand, and could never have.”

To criticize this speech delivered by the First Lady last night would be like opposing “motherhood” or “apple pie” or a Saturday afternoon at a “baseball game.”

You know, I’ve been lightly and gaily thinking about whom I might like to see run in 2016 and her first name is Michelle and her last name ain’t Bachmann. Oh, I know she won’t do it ‘cause politics isn’t her game (and maybe that’s why she’s so beautiful). I suppose, somewhere, somehow, they rate First Ladies of the United States. As of this moment, Mrs. Obama has got to be up there at, or nearly at, the top. And that reminds me, Saturday night I’m going to the Fitzgerald Theater, in St. Paul, to see Eleanor, starring Loretta Swit. Can’t wait! I’ll give you a report on it next week.

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I'm Crushed

How can an old man's head be spinning so over such a young, lovely princess?
by Charlie Leck

I had this blog all finished and put away, ready for posting, when I happened to hear on CNN's late afternoon news show a comment that virtually resembled the theme of this blog. It was silly Jack Cafferty who said it about Michelle Obama -- that he had a bit of a crush on her. All of this in the interests of full disclosure. Nevertheless, I contend this blog is completely original and was not influenced by Cafferty's remarks.

I know it's tragically immature and hopelessly silly, but I do believe I have an enormous crush on the First Lady of the land.

Forget the Prez! He seems to be a wonderful guy and he's trying awfully hard and doing whatever he can to save the Union; however, Michelle is succeeding without even trying. She just has to walk out into public with that amazing smile of hers, flashing those glorious dark, sparkling eyes, and I melt like a teenager in love.

I had the same feeling about Miss Dalton, my teacher when I was in the 5th grade. Oh my, but I was in love with the woman. I'd never seen anyone quite so beautiful. She had the same smile that I see Michelle Obama flash these days. It seemed so genuine and so gloriously confident. Why, I think, that's when things started to go so badly for me in school. Who could concentrate on the conversion of fractions to decimals when Miss Dalton was standing in the front of the classroom, writing it all out of the blackboard? All I could think about was how I wanted to spend the entire rest of my life in her company, with her arms around me and her body up-close to me.

"Okay, Charlie, you please come up here and convert this fraction -- four-fifths -- to its decimal equivalent."

"Huh?"

My legs wouldn't work properly. It was as if all my muscles had gone mushy. I wobbled toward the blackboard in the front of the room and Miss Dalton held out a piece of chalk to me. Her finger tips touched mine as I took the chalk from her. My head spun wildly.

I wrote the fraction down on the blackboard. It's as far as I got. I couldn't remember a thing she'd said about the method of converting it. I froze in embarrassment. My mouth was irritably dry and I couldn't speak. This beautiful teacher shook her head softly from side to side and tilted it just slightly, in both sympathy and embarrassment for me.

"Well, you must have been day-dreaming through my explanation, Charlie! It's such a simple process. I can't waste class time going over it again. You just come in after school and I'll explain it to you again."

She dismissed me with a tiny, but terribly pretty, smile.

"Teddy, you come up here and make this conversion, please!"

That afternoon, as Teddy and the other out-of-town kids were boarding the buses, he said something awful to me about my utter stupidity. I challenged him to step down from the bus and say that to my face. He did. I took a swing at him. He swung back. We both missed, realizing how painful it would be to land a punch. We ended up wrestling and rolling around on the ground. A couple of bus drivers separated us.

Miss Dalton stood there, glaring at the two of us. There was fire in her stunning eyes and her nostrils flared. What a beauty!

"Charlie Leck, you get into my classroom where you're supposed to be! Right now!"

My dear teacher was so upset with me. She let me know with absolute certainty.

"You're supposed to be one of the kind and gentle kids in this school, Charlie Leck. You're not a bully. How could you get into a fight like that?"

She was as beautiful when she was angry as when not. It was wonderful to be so close to her and alone. My hands trembled and my heart pounded. I wondered how anyone could be so glowingly beautiful.

Oh, my! I'm told such childhood feelings are understandable. But now? Here I am, fast approaching my 70th year, and I'm having the same pulsing excitement about the First Lady. What a woman!

How can anyone be so beautiful? And, so confident and self-assured. It's electric when she walks out on the stage to address an audience or make an announcement. Talk about charisma! She's a living, walking, talking, smiling definition of the word.

Laura Bush was a nice lady and, apparently, very kind. And Hillary was, you know, Hillary! Barbara Bush was so sweetly grandmotherish; and Nancy Reagan was fire and brimstone and just a touch edgy. Pat Nixon and Mamie were quiet, reserved and private. Bess Truman was fiery, but frumpy. And even the ubiquitous Jackie Kennedy was not as solid, confident and self-composed as our current First Lady. Eleanor Roosevelt was a star - there's no question about that. She was bright and bold and alert. Michelle is all those things, but she's also beautiful, with that winning smile and those rapturous eyes.

Mrs. Obama is simply the most extraordinary presidential spouse of my life-time.

Yup! I've got a little kid's crush on our spectacular First Lady and she can do no wrong by me.