Michelle Obama: a Remarkable Woman

Michelle Obama is speaking at the convention. She is stressing her family and her personal relationship with Barack Obama.

People of the cynical sort often insist that politics aren't about personalities, but in this case Michele's likability, her intelligence and wit, her poise under ultra right wing fire, and her fine example of leadership and commitment are indeed worthwhile qualities.

Maybe people who insist on devaluing personality do so because they lack it.

Well Michelle has it.

And the people are lovin' it. She said:

"I come here as a wife who loves my husband and believes he will be an extraordinary president. I come here as a Mom whose girls are the heart of my heart and the center of my world – they're the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night. Their future – and all our children's future – is my stake in this election."

"And I come here as a daughter – raised on the South Side of Chicago by a father who was a blue collar city worker, and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me. My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, and her intelligence reflected in my own daughters."

"My dad was our rock," she said. "He and my mom poured everything they had into me and Craig. It was the greatest gift a child can receive: never doubting for a single minute that you're loved, and cherished, and have a place in this world. And thanks to their faith and hard work, we both were able to go on to college. So I know firsthand from their lives – and mine – that the American Dream endures."

She cited her and Barack's choice to teach their kids working-class values: working hard to pay the bills, scrimping and saving, honesty and integrity, treating others with dignity and respect, but also to struggle for a better world.

She talked about Barack's decision to put off Wall Street jobs in favor of becoming a community organizer. She talked about watching Barack talking with working folks on the South Side of Chicago who wanted to rebuild their city as the steel companies closed down looking for profits elsewhere.

Barack, she said, "alked about 'the world as it is' and 'the world as it should be.' And he said that all too often, we accept the distance between the two, and settle for the world as it is – even when it doesn't reflect our values and aspirations. But he reminded us that we know what our world should look like. We know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves – to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be. And isn't that the great American story?

"It's the story of men and women gathered in churches and union halls, in town squares and high school gyms – people who stood up and marched and risked everything they had – refusing to settle, determined to mold our future into the shape of our ideals.

"It is because of their will and determination that this week, we celebrate two anniversaries: the 88th anniversary of women winning the right to vote, and the 45th anniversary of that hot summer day when Dr. King lifted our sights and our hearts with his dream for our nation.

"I stand here today at the crosscurrents of that history – knowing that my piece of the American Dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me. All of them driven by the same conviction that drove my dad to get up an hour early each day to painstakingly dress himself for work. The same conviction that drives the men and women I've met all across this country:

"People who work the day shift, kiss their kids goodnight, and head out for the night shift – without disappointment, without regret – that goodnight kiss a reminder of everything they're working for.

"The military families who say grace each night with an empty seat at the table. The servicemen and women who love this country so much, they leave those they love most to defend it.

"The young people across America serving our communities – teaching children, cleaning up neighborhoods, caring for the least among us each and every day.

"People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters – and sons – can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher.

"People like Joe Biden, who's never forgotten where he came from, and never stopped fighting for folks who work long hours and face long odds and need someone on their side again.

"All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.

"That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack's journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope.

"That is why I love this country."

[update]:My favorite lines: Michelle said, "And in the end, after all that's happened these past 19 months, the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago. He's the same man who drove me and our new baby daughter home from the hospital ten years ago this summer, inching along at a snail's pace, peering anxiously at us in the rearview mirror, feeling the whole weight of her future in his hands, determined to give her everything he'd struggled so hard for himself, determined to give her what he never had: the affirming embrace of a father's love."

(Michelle for Prez. in 2016?)