The One Time I See No Equality

Often in American politics we hear the phrase "but both sides do it." A good example is the outrage over the Tea Party being told to sit down and shut up. That elections have consequences, and the healthcare bill would become law. Now those same Tea Partiers are telling the protesters in Wisconsin to sit down and shut up. Elections have consequences after all...

The one thing I have not seen any inverse to is the treatment of Michelle Obama. It really is ridiculous. I remember watching the Family Guy episode in which Laura Bush was mocked for having "killed a guy" over and over, which referred to an event when she was a teenager and killed a classmate. At the time I thought this was an extremely low blow, but have to admit that it was humor from someone not affiliated with any party or particular mainstream movement.

Laura Bush was a fairly innocuous First Lady. As First Lady she picked an issue and spoke out about it. Laura Bush's issue was childhood reading. She was concerned about teachers and actually championed a program called "Troops to Teachers" that moves servicemen into the classroom by using federal dollars to make them more attractive to school districts who hire them. I pride myself on consuming more news coverage than most anyone I know, and I never heard anyone say anything good or bad about this program. Keith Olbermann never claimed that Mrs. Bush was attempting to indoctrinate America's underprivileged children into a pro-military outlook so they would be more likely to enlist directly after high school. Chris Matthews never cited any study that showed Mrs. Bush was just trying to get more children to read the Bible only.

Fast forward to First Lady Michelle Obama has decided to take up the massively controversial issue of childhood obesity. Currently she is being lambasted by the right for her controversial findings that American kids are fat, need to eat right and play more. Apparently all of this is part of a controversy to keep Sarah Palin from feeding her children cookies as they dodge death panels.

I'll be honest with you, this is not a call to open up on the families of politicians. This is a call for people to bring some civility into politics. I often use this question to judge what I should think "if someone I liked did that would I be mad?" I can honestly say 90% of the uproar in our system is based on people not using that statement in their evaluations.