Forgive me, but I feel compelled to begin with a little gripe:
Americans take so much pride in their progressive culture of middle-class working women that stay-at-home women are considered little more than latter-day stepford wives. Therefore, I find it more than a little schizophrenic that they are celebrating Michelle Obama’s metamorphosis from a middle-class working woman into an upper-class socialite – complete with a fashion style and calendar of social and charitable events that would make any NYC socialite green with envy.
But telling little girls to grow up to be like this new Michelle is rather like telling them to grow up to be like Cinderella. How progressive is that…?
Apropos schizophrenia, am I the only one who finds it odd that the Obamas went out to one of Washington’s most popular restaurants last weekend for a quiet dinner date … alone?
Particularly since they have the best chef(s) in America at their beck and call in the White House, and it would have been very easy for them to have a quiet dinner alone in one of the many dining rooms there.
Besides, I’m sure the live-in mother-in-law would have been happy to keep the kids otherwise occupied in some other distant room. And it’s not as if, like most working couples, going to a fancy restaurant is a big treat for them anymore.
Yet they took their 50-car motorcade to a restaurant a few blocks away, were escorted to an area that was cordoned off with curtains and had a meal that the White House chef(s) could surely have matched.
But just imagine the carbon footprint, to say nothing of the traffic jam, this caused. If they wanted to be alone, why not stay home; never mind that most people go to fancy restaurants as much for the social ambience (to see and be seen) as for the food. And to complete the oddity, details of their private dinner were leaked to the press even before they finished dessert.
Now, far be it from me to begrudge the Obamas a night out; especially since they claim that “dating” is one of the keys to their exemplary marriage. But I humbly suggest they consider a theatre production, a concert or even a professional ball game next time. At least then it would not cost the rest of us such gratuitous inconvenience.
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