April 20, 2012

Eat what you're told — a precept that appears and reappears in the life of Barack Obama.

First, there was the young Obama, as described by Obama himself, in terms of taking instruction from his stepfather:
“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chili peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”
Notice how the individual will of the child is missing. The father figure teaches; the child learns how to eat. He receives instruction. He has feelings in that he reports the texture (but not the taste) of the various foods, but we hear absolutely nothing about whether he resisted these impositions or felt any sort of disgust. What happened happened. He was in Indonesia, things were like this there, Lolo had his ideas, and Obama existed in that milieu, which was tough/crunchy and infused with spiritual beliefs.

And now, Obama, President of the United States, is married to a woman who purports to teach us all how to eat. She's not forcing us to do anything. And despite some recent talk on the subject, the government has never undertaken to require us to eat broccoli. But young Obama wasn't forced to eat dog. He "learned." He was "introduced." (Fido, meet Barack. Barack, meet Fido... meat Fido.) It's instruction, not compulsion.

And maybe you will eat what you're told.

Children.

93 comments:

ricpic said...

The lesson learned was -- Eat the Rich!

traditionalguy said...

This is out of control. I stopped by the Varsity yesterday and they are serving Hot Dog. The animists in Atlanta now eat naked dogs, or chili dogs, or slaw dogs and eat chopped onion on the side.

Chip Ahoy said...

Ah. So that's why I keep trying to hang from branches by a tail that I do not have.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's not so crazy to think you take on the powers of what you eat if you've ever had too much Taco Bell.

Wince said...

"Eat our peas."

"How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat?!"

Hey, Obama, leave those dogs alone.

Chip Ahoy said...

I've always wondered why this propensity to stop and wee on fire hydrants.

David said...

Tiger?

What next, polar bears? Pandas?

Chip Ahoy said...

This impulse to have a go after passing cars has suddenly all become clear.

Hagar said...

If, indeed, he was.
Posts elsewhere have reminded us that Indonesia is a Moslem country, and that, while it is a very large country - 4th in the world after the U.S. - and there are islands where some natives may eat dog meat, it is quite unusual and not easy to find in Djakarta.
So this may be another story about Barack Obama that turns out o be not quite so.

Automatic_Wing said...

You mean as described by Bill Ayers.

edutcher said...

So he doesn't have any will of his own, huh?

Starting to wonder if Moochelle has a closet full of black leather.

Meade said...

Kids, do NOT eat what you are told. For instance - Michelle Obama's organic broccoli. It may have lead in it.

X said...

The dog eating seems to have demoralized the lefties. they love dogs too.

roesch/voltaire said...

This is an Althouse stretch linking a child having to eat what they told to eat-- and who amongst us has not experienced that, to general guidelines for a healthier diet. Given the huge industry that feeds and staves our struggle with obesity, Michelle Obama is just one of a thousand voices urging us to eat healthy, but of course i Althouse has to feed us the morning anti-Obama cereal to stoke our ideologies.

holdfast said...

I still like the title Dogate. With only one "g".

I wonder where Bill Ayers ate dog?

Christopher in MA said...

It's instruction, not compulsion.

Until you won't comply.

David said...

Somewhere Bill Ayers is looking at the underside of a bus.

Again.

X said...

RV if MO's diet is so healthy, why is she overweight by 10-20 pounds? I eat paleo and have next to no body fat.

Ender's Ghost said...

Remember when conservatives balked at Nancy Reagan telling kids not to put bad things in their body because it was unhealthy? Good times.

Meade said...

roesch/voltaire said...
"Michelle Obama is just one of a thousand voices urging us to eat healthy"

It's enough lead for anyone planning to have children pick vegetables in that garden or eat produce from it to reconsider their plans: lead is highly toxic to children's developing organs and brain functions -- however, it's below the 400 ppm the EPA suggests is a threat to human health.


MichelleObamaCare

Calypso Facto said...

The lesson learned was -- Eat the Rich!

Or, bringing it all together, "Eat the rich, capitalist, running-dogs!"

ed said...

"Remember when conservatives balked at Nancy Reagan telling kids not to put bad things in their body because it was unhealthy? Good times." - Ender's Ghost

You mean like heroin? Cocaine? Speed? Because if you actually meant something else then you would have actually identified the specific "bad things" Nancy Reagan was talking about.

Unless you really thing that narcotics is good for kids. If that is the case then go ahead and detail your argument.

Because you're seriously boring the shit out of me.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

So he doesn't have any will of his own, huh?

Starting to wonder if Moochelle has a closet full of black leather.


And she doesn't need to use a strap on....

sorry, couldn't resist

Meade said...

Just Say No... to Michelle.

If I had an vegetable garden, it would not look like Michelle's.

Paul said...

Come November Obama can eat crow along with his cronies.

turtle said...

Take note: the narrative in the book sounds nothing like man in the whitehouse.

Scott M said...

And she doesn't need to use a strap on....

sorry, couldn't resist


That, of course, begs the question; "What is Barack and Michelle's safety word?"

themightypuck said...

How else do you feed kids?

edutcher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dreams said...

"It really isn’t unfair at all to bring Obama’s canine consumption to public attention. The president isn’t really one of us. He’s a dog-eater. He tells the story in his memoir to emphasize that viscerally, Obama identifies with the Third World of his upbringing more than with the America of his adulthood. It is our great misfortune to have a president who dislikes our country at this juncture in our history."

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/04/19/dog-eating-and-obamas-identity/3/

edutcher said...

Scott M said...

And she doesn't need to use a strap on....

sorry, couldn't resist


That, of course, begs the question; "What is Barack and Michelle's safety word?"


Axelrod?

roesch/voltaire said...

I don't get your point Meade unless you mean to imply that it is Obama's fault that the previous occupants of the the White House didn't use good Milwaukee made Milorganite and instead chose a cheap mercury contaminated local brand which has affected the garden she planted in good faith. Are you suggesting that I should not feed my grand daughter the vegetables grown in my back yard because M Obama's garden has some pollution problems? Or do you just like throwing any old Milorganite at the Obamas to see if some sticks?

Nomadic100 said...

Obama's writing is vaguely impressionistic because he didn't write the "autobiography."

X said...

The only way Obama can lose this election is if he's caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy or a bunch of dog drumsticks and greasy bbq sauce fingers. oh wait...

CJinPA said...

She's not forcing us to do anything.

Accccctually,

She has more or less written school lunch menues for thousands of communities across the nation. The law she championed required (forces) school disticts to hike their school lunch prices by at least 5 cents per year while implementing all the grains and healthy foods the kids won't eat.

Unknown said...

The boy who was told what to do (or he would be left behind) has become the man who tells us what to do (or we will be left behind).

Rosebud!

cubanbob said...

This dog business is rather amusing. Everything the left does just blows up in their face.

As for what Mrs O eats, I could care less as long as it isn't on my dime.

Bruce Hayden said...

"It really isn’t unfair at all to bring Obama’s canine consumption to public attention. The president isn’t really one of us. He’s a dog-eater. He tells the story in his memoir to emphasize that viscerally, Obama identifies with the Third World of his upbringing more than with the America of his adulthood. It is our great misfortune to have a president who dislikes our country at this juncture in our history."

I have been saying something like this for the last two days. Maybe that is it - that he is a "dog eater". Not just literally, but also figuratively too. It is just one of those civil norms, that we never really talk about, because we don't. It is shared by almost all Americans - probably more American even that apple pie. Yet, we have a President who doesn't share that norm. Along with a lot of others that we take for granted.

My theory, right now, is that we are just now discovering how alien Obama really is. As I have said before, he isn't American, despite having American citizenship and being our President. And, the mere idea of our President not being American, having American norms, sharing our heritage and mores, is just too outrageous to have been seriously considered by many, at least 3 1/2 years ago when he was elected President. I remember thinking him a bit odd, but voted against him more because of his party and what they stood for. But, not really alien, which is really what he is.

Meade said...

roesch-v, lead poisoning in children is no joke. I'll be dead serious: If you are knowingly feeding your grandchildren vegetables grown in soil that you have amended with Milorganite or any other fertilizer containing sewage sludge, in my opinion, you should be investigated for child endangerment.

I urge you, especially if you are growing edible plants in urban soils, to have your soil tested for heavy metals before you plant.:

UW Soil and Plant Analysis Lab
8452 Mineral Point Road
Verona, WI 53593
(608) 262-4364

james conrad said...

"Notice how the individual will of the child is missing. The father figure teaches; the child learns how to eat. He receives instruction. He has feelings in that he reports the texture (but not the taste) of the various foods, but we hear absolutely nothing about whether he resisted these impositions or felt any sort of disgust. What happened happened. He was in Indonesia, things were like this there, Lolo had his ideas, and Obama existed in that milieu, which was tough/crunchy and infused with spiritual beliefs."

This is all bullshit, the fact that Obama as a grown man relates eating dog in his book without the slightest regard for eating dog, indeed, he celebrates it, is the key factor in this story.

rcommal said...

I urge you, especially if you are growing edible plants in urban soils, to have your soil tested for heavy metals before you plant

This is such good advice. People rarely think to do it and it does take some foresight and planning (which I lack, myself, in such areas) in order to get the garden in timely, but it really makes a lot of sense.

greenlantern said...

I think your point here is very interesting. Whoever wrote this does portray a boy who did not question anything he was "fed". I think you have to break the will of someone in order to make them a good communist or follower of whatever tyrannical ideology you want to inculcate. I'm afraid that after his "father" Frank Marshall Davis, the pedophile, got through with BO, eating whatever Lolo fed him was easy by comparison.

Mick said...

Bruce Hayden said...

"My theory, right now, is that we are just now discovering how alien Obama really is. As I have said before, he isn't American, despite having American citizenship and being our President."


If he wan Hawaii, and that is FAR from proven, then he is a US Citizen. However, no matter if he was born on the Oval Office desk, he is not a natural born Citizen (the requirement), since his father was a British subject, and never American citizen. Obama 2 was born a British subject, and as such is not a natural born Citizen. Alexander Hamilton confirms that Obama Sr. was an improper "ascendant" (improper ancestor), and therefore Obama 2 is certainly not a "creature of our own" (sic) in Federalist #68.

MTN said...

As I'm sure you've been told many times, you're one hell of a writer. I really love this sentence: "He was in Indonesia, things were like this there, Lolo had his ideas, and Obama existed in that milieu, which was tough/crunchy and infused with spiritual beliefs."

Mick said...

"Creature of our own" (sic) in Federalist #68 is a natural born Citizen. Could a creature of our own possibly be the son of a Communist Kenyan British subject (improper ascendant), whom never intended to become an American citizen?

Seeing Red said...

Safeword: Maommy

Scott M said...

Everything the left does just blows up in their face.

Sometimes it takes thirty or forty years, but, yes, this does seem to be borne out by history.

roesch/voltaire said...

Well Meade for your information, I compost my garden; the makers of Milorganite point out that their product should not be used for gardening or growing edible plants. Still I do not see your/Althouse's point about the general good advice that Michelle Obama and many others have to make about improving our diets. It seems you like to go off on tangents just to play scold to the Obamas or anybody else that does not agree with your view.

pdug said...

In the Prebysterian/Reformed tradition (and maybe other Christian faiths), the fifth commandment [honor your father and mother] has a broader application to 'all those in authority over you'.

Question 124: Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?

Answer: By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God's ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.

Question 125: Why are superiors styled father and mother?

Answer: Superiors are styled father and mother, both to teach them in all duties toward their inferiors, like natural parents, to express love and tenderness to them, according to their several relations; and to work inferiors to a greater willingness and cheerfulness in performing their duties to their superiors, as to their parents.

So its because Obama is a Christian. (Wright's church, the UCC, has a bit of historic link with Reformed Christianity, though very 'liberal' nowadays)

Anonymous said...

Ann said,

"But young Obama wasn't forced to eat dog."

How do you know that to be a fact?

Middleboro Jones said...

" Come November Obama can eat crow along with his cronies."

From your post to God's inbox. May our country be saved from these feckless idiots and their ilk.

Joe said...

My theory, right now, is that we are just now discovering how alien Obama really is.

I figured this out five years ago. More than a year before the election it was obvious that Obama's world view was Marxist. That doesn't mean he's a Marxist--I don't think he believes in anything but himself--but that his perceptions are filtered through by a third world Marxist lens.

The Crack Emcee said...

Tough/crunchy and infused with spiritual beliefs.

Oh man, am I ever using that.

It's the perfect combination for talking idiots into anything,...

David said...

X said...
RV if MO's diet is so healthy, why is she overweight by 10-20 pounds?


And why do you think she is overweight? Because she is big? Why go there?

There are enough reasons to criticize the Obamas without getting into their body types. My own take is that Michelle is a large woman from a family of large people, and that her weight is perfectly appropriate to her body type. You aren't persuading anyone with snark, whether you are correct or not.

Christy said...

I was admiring recently the complete renovation of my grandparents farmhouse by a cousin. The rest of the property has been developed. Being a gardener I scoped out a great place to put in a garden and then realized it was where the last out-house was located and used until about 1966. Wonder how many suburban gardens are atop such?

the wolf said...

He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate

No wonder Obama is barking mad.

Humperdink said...

David said "And why do you think she is overweight?"

....because she needs a back-up alarm when she walks backwards.

ndspinelli said...

"I think" this lead, pesticide stuff is all scare tactics. "I believe" it's just people wanting to sound important.

How do you like it when someone talks out of their ass on a subject about which they don't know jack shit? Sucks..doesn't it!

Kirby Olson said...

You are what you can't swallow.

Anonymous said...

I found the doggy eating jokes to be funny, but when using the example of being told to eat dog as a child it doesnt have anything remotely to do with guidelines for healthy eating here in this country that Michelle Obama advocates for.

When Gary Taubes or other low carb gurus recommend a low carb diet, which I agree with and advocate to have the food pyramid changed, is it "feeding children"?

I actually disagree with her recommendations, too focused on grains, but there is a limit as to how far one can legitimately find fault without looking like hate mongers. Even the attacks on her body size, she isn't overweight.

The left eventually looked pretty bad too after relentless attacks on Bush. Sometimes it's just too much.

My iPad wants to correct mongers to mongrels, now that's funny.

setnaffa said...

The communist prophecy of the last capitalist hanged by a rope he sold his executioner seems ever more possible under the Obama regime...

William said...

Never in the course of human events has a man's simple pursuit of waffles been so beset with travails and misdirections.....This is an example of Obama having it both ways. He claims that his exotic background has given him a visceral understanding of how the third world apprehends life, but if you assert that this same exotic background makes him uncomprehending of the concerns of ordinary Americans, then you're engaging in racism. Dogs, waffles, broccoli: I say it's spinach and the hell with it.

X said...

David, being big boned is a result of being overweight not a cause. I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was pointing out a laywoman with no training and suboptimal personal experience is telling people how to eat. based on what? a book she read?

wildswan said...

If you are what you eat
and if Obama ate dog, snake and grasshopper but not tiger

Pookie Number 2 said...

"Can't I just eat my woofle?"

David R. Graham said...

@Hayden: "Alien" is the accurate word/observation. Could also be avenging alien. He and huge swath of academe believe USA is imperialist by nature and evil for considering itself a nation and on both counts deserves punishment by being lived large off of, prana-sucking the nation's life out of her, getting big off her ever-diminishing vitality. Note underlying assumption that existence is a zero-sum game, not a synergistic dance.

Allen Edwards said...

Dog bites man - non-story.

Man bites dog - story.

Dog bites Obama - justice.

David said...

X said...
David, being big boned is a result of being overweight not a cause. I wasn't trying to be snarky. I was pointing out a laywoman with no training and suboptimal personal experience is telling people how to eat. based on what? a book she read?


Of course that is not what you said. I am not particularly impressed with Mrs. Obama's pronouncements on diet either, but it does not have to be an occasion to insult her.

X said...

OK White Knight, what was the insult?

David said...

X, you lack the courage to take responsibility for your own comments. You said: "RV if MO's diet is so healthy, why is she overweight by 10-20 pounds? I eat paleo and have next to no body fat."

First of all, you made no point about Mrs. Obama's training in nutrition, which was the first way you tried to weasel out.

Second, you called her fat. In fact the whole point of your post was to call her fat. That's an insult. If you did not intend it as such, you need to work on the clarity of your writing.

Weasel.

SPImmortal said...

Obama 2012: a puppy in every pot

Brian Brown said...

Well, for some of us, Michelle Obama is fat and the fact that she believes she can lecture on eating habits is insulting.

I'll listen to Michelle's diet advice when she isn't a size 16 and her husband doesn't smoke.

Okay?

Don M said...

Snake is not tough. It is wonderfully tender, and can be eaten raw. Snakes are dissimilar to humans and there are virtually no diseases that we can catch from them.

Worms are tough.

Where did I eat snake? Ranger School.

X said...

That's what I thought David. You needed to rewrite my comment in your own words to make it an insult.

SPImmortal said...

If you mention "raw doggin'" to Obama, he gets excited, but not for the reason you think.

SPImmortal said...

Obama ate dog biscuits as a child. It's kinda like a crab cake.

Roger J. said...

Hmmmm- so Harry Truman once said, "if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog...." And Barach Obama said "...left the readers imagination..."

I knew Harry Truman, and Barack Obama--you are no Harry Truman.

wyo sis said...

Michelle Obama is overweight and as such has no more business telling others what to eat than Ann Romney has telling real working women about economics. Or something.

Anonymous said...

Wyo sis,
But, but, but, I thought Ann Romney was a "real working woman"! In the home.

Brian Sandre said...

I think Ann is on to something. When you’re at that age and you eat something like a dog or a snake or even vegetables, don't you spit out in your napkin.
When I was about six years old, my Mom and her boyfriend tried to get me to eat zucchini and octopus for dinner, I chewed for few seconds, but it stayed in my mouth until I could perform the fake kid wipe mouth/spit into napkin (even if they threaten me with the old you can't leave the table until the plate is clean).
This trick was performed with fish, vegetables, and other distasteful things that may be good for you. My napkin would be filled with chewed stuff and go right into the garbage. And I believe millions of American children have performed this ritual. Heck, even my daughters do it today.
I think President Obama needed Jean Shepard to punch up that dog eating paragraph in his book.

Methadras said...

"Eat what you're told — a precept that appears and reappears in the life of Barack Obama."

Appears that this is a tradition in the Urkle family. I mean his wife goes on dictat tours telling our children and us what we should eat.

Troubled Voter said...

if you replaced the indonesian aspect of this with an american setting, everyone would be endorsing good old american parenting!

it's the xenophobia that allows the distinction.

this is a stupid thing to even think about.

Scott M said...

it's the xenophobia that allows the distinction.

What distinction? I've been casually pursuing the comments here and I don't see what you mean.

Troubled Voter said...

the entire reason this is being discussed is because it's a craaaazy thing that happened in indonesia.

and then people like althouse conduct inane analyses that don't hold up. Obama was a child, he was being given food, and was expected to eat it. in fact her conclusion doesn't even mesh with her title. "Eat what you're told" doesn't sync with "it's instruction, not compulsion."

Basically, it's a desperate attempt to highlight the strangeness and natural anti-Americanness of Obama. Althouse thinks she's being smart, but she's just hoping to keep talking about it.

Like I said, replace the foodstuffs with American vegetables and meats and the setting with an American town, and everyone would be totally fine with the whole thing. Althouse wouldn't have legs to stand on, because EVERYONE teaches/tells/compels/requires/urges/forces/begs their children to eat certain food.

Scott M said...

the entire reason this is being discussed is because it's a craaaazy thing that happened in indonesia.

Wrong, because in order for the following to hold up,

Like I said, replace the foodstuffs with American vegetables and meats and the setting with an American town, and everyone would be totally fine with the whole thing.

...the "foodstuff" in question would have to be considered a pet, not food in any way, by the audience you're showing it to. The fact the difference in his childhood locales from most Americans is incidental in this case. Or, to paraphrase,

It's the dog, stupid.

shirley elizabeth said...

Thank you for the soil info, Meade. Hadn't even considered that.

yashu said...

...the "foodstuff" in question would have to be considered a pet, not food in any way, by the audience you're showing it to.

My mom tells the story of herself as a little girl, very fond of an adorable big-eyed calf that she considered her "pet".

One day, her pet was eaten by the family. It was a traumatic experience. To this day she refuses to eat veal.

J Malone said...

These psychological musings of yours have finally reached a new low in stupidity. You should thank God every morning for the continuation of tenure for University professors.

wyo sis said...

This whole dog eat dog political dog of a story (see what I did there?) is more about the way politics runs with a side issues in order to discredit the other side. We're easily distracted and we love a good old dirty political dog fight. Serious responses to such silliness are rightly construed as dog in the manger.

Bruce Hayden said...

Like I said, replace the foodstuffs with American vegetables and meats and the setting with an American town, and everyone would be totally fine with the whole thing.

...the "foodstuff" in question would have to be considered a pet, not food in any way, by the audience you're showing it to. The fact the difference in his childhood locales from most Americans is incidental in this case. Or, to paraphrase,

It's the dog, stupid.


I think that the reason that this has legs is that it shows that Obama is not one of us. He has the sensibilities of the 3rd World, and not the U.S. He tends to side with them, instead of us. And, seems more than willing to destroy our economy, our military (esp. our nuclear arsenal), and our foreign relations, just to bring us down to the level of the 3rd World that he emphasizes and aligns himself with.

And, this is one of those basic things - for Americans, dogs are some of our favorite, most cherished, pets, and not a delicacy to eat. Eating them is almost unthinkable for almost all native born Americans. Yet - Obama was so ignorant about American sensibilities, that he would include eating dogs in his autobiography.

Kwach said...

I'm really trying to understand the point of this post. Because a young boy was exposed to a foreign culture (including unusual food) and didn't balk at trying it, he grew up to be ... what? Someone who has no will? And then he married a woman who would tell him and all the children in America what to eat ... but I'm not sure why. Does this childhood lack of will extend to anyone who spends time in a foreign country and doesn't refuse to try the local cuisine, or is it possible that some people eat things I wouldn't dream of (escargot and goat meat, for instance) not because they are mindless automatons but because they're open-minded or even curious? Is it possible that some children are open-minded and curious? Or even obedient to their parents, as we say they should be?

At any rate, I don't see how a child tasting non-western foods relates to nefariousness on the part of Mrs. Obama, who has taken up an innocuous and health-minded cause (eating healthier) that's very much in line with the various causes of every First Lady in recent memory. We've had Victory Gardens, highway beautification projects, physical fitness causes, the reading books ... and none of that has deterred our determination to buy our vegetables, litter like mad, become couch potatoes or watch the movie version. Why is everyone so up in arms about Mrs. Obama pointing out the very obvious problem with American children and junk food?

PS: I dated a man who was served a hamburger at a restaurant when he was in the Navy that tasted strange. He asked what kind of meat it was. The waitress replied, "Either dog or monkey." He didn't finish it, but he did taste it, and now I wonder if that's why, years later when I would ask him what he wanted for dinner, he'd say, "I don't care ... anything is fine." Do you think maybe the monkey burger experience destroyed his will? Or was he really the amiable and easy-going man he pretended to be??

PSS: Did your parents EVER make you eat your vegetables?

Meade said...

Kwach, here's the point:
Some of us grow up and think for ourselves.
Eat this (vegetable, ideology, opinion, doctrine, government mandate...), it's good for you.
But is it? How do you know? Because the entity telling you is the (parent, president, first lady, expert, government official...)?
As a (presumably) grown man, Barack Obama wrote a memoir in order to promote himself. He chose to highlight his dog-eating experience. He calculated that the incident would help portray him as worldly, adventurous, open-minded, and multicultural. But how could he have predicted nearly 20 years ago, when he wrote his story of race and inheritance, that Americans would find it would only paint him as submissive, self-satisfied, and out of touch with mainstream American culture?

jim said...

PuppyGate Ahoy!

What an awesome "scoop" - render Obama the scary Other (as usual) & deflect from Romney's abuse of the family pet in one fell swoop? Git along little doggie, indeed. There sure is something sinister about a kid eating what's on his plate, alright - after all, little boys are always such delicate eaters.

The angle being explored here is, however, a lame mutt on a greyhound track. Trying to make Michelle Obama's initiatives for fitness & good nutrition into some sort of friendly fascism? That dog won't hunt. The epidemic of childhood obesity in America is both a shame & a menace: its cost in both human & economic terms will be horrendous for many years to come.

Rather telling that most American libtards are far more choked at BOTH Romney & Obama for being so bloody chummy with the same old wolfpack of Wall Street commisars whose ongoing exercise in mandatory corporate communism keeps dragging America ever closer to becoming the newest Third World failed state ... while wingnuts are VERY CONCERNED with Obama "brainwashing our kids" by telling them to stay in school, or his wife telling them exercise can be just as much fun as video games & fresh fruit is just as sweet as sodapop.

As First Lady, Laura Bush campaigned for literacy - also an admirable cause ... & an action that by Althouse's reasoning plainly oppressed & stigmatized legions of proud upstanding American illiterates!