inflammatory, picking up on your words, as they are designed to be, but the piece in no way suggests she s a nightmare. she had nothing to do with that line. it doesn t appear in the story. i don t think we d be discussing this or there would be a controversy were it not for that. it didn t strike me as a terribly controversial story. we used to write all these stories, particularly during the 2008 campaign, about how aggressive michelle obama was and how outspoken she is, and then they basically put a muzzle on her and now we re shocked and outraged that she s quiet and demure. you can t have it both ways. a reported piece, dana, in this story, kelly goff, who writes for the rude, is quoted as sayingitis a national shame that michelle obama is not plunging into bigger issues now that she doesn t have to worry about her image as a super strong can you imagine the reaction if she had been stronger? a la hillary clinton. imagine, also, reporters oftentimes like to provoke, pu
in. those things appear to be invisible to michelle coddle as she evaluates michelle obama. this is not the battle, i don t believe, of the michelles. i think this headline was inflammatory, but if you look at michelle coddle s piece, it is not an opinion piece. it is a reported piece where she both talks to feminists and talks to republican activists as well who present both sides of the story. that isn t to say, however, that she is wrong in the premise of the article because i think it s very important for women to be able to make the choice of stay home. do you remember when there was a democratic strategist, hilary rosen, who basically said that ann romney never worked a day in her life? despite the five children. despite the five children. you have to give credit to mothers who make that decision. in the piece michelle coddle writes, enough, already, for the pining of michelle obama, something that doesn t exist. i asked her about the story and she told me the headline is
michelle coddle knew what she was doing. she was expressing a feminist point of view that speaks to her own book club. it s not the same as the women around the rest of the country. i don t know that if what michelle s motives were, michelle coddle, that is, but i think it s pretty clear that michelle obama s motives are to let her husband be president and to use this very critical time in her children s life to focus on children and children s issues. and i m sorry, what is wrong with focusing on children s issues? i think we need to focus more on those. i am just shocked at jim s allegation that journalists would do something to try to generate clicks. you can t recovered from that yet? no. the take-away is we re here talking about so on some level it worked and stirred a debate, even though not the debate the author intended. thanks for stopping by. don t forget, send us a tweet about the show. @howardkurtz. we ll read the best ones later. up next, kirsten powers in
was doing. she was expressing a feminist point of view that speaks to her own book club. it s not the same as the women around the rest of the country. i don t know that if what michelle s motives were, michelle coddle, that is, but i think it s pretty clear that michelle obama s motives are to let her husband be president and to use this very critical time in her children s life to focus on children and children s issues. and i m sorry, what is wrong with focusing on children s issues? i think we need to focus more on those. i am just shocked at jim s allegation that journalists would do something to try to generate clicks. you can t recovered from that yet? no. the take-away is we re here talking about so on some level it worked and stirred a debate, even though not the debate the author intended. thanks for stopping by. don t forget, send us a tweet about the show. @howardkurtz. we ll read the best ones later. up next, kirsten powers in
office by being called an angry black woman. that s right. have you ever seen her angry once? even close? yet she still has to defend herself. joan, you hit the nail on the head. sometimes our white sisters don t understand that the struggle for us as black women dating back to the suffragist movement in this country and feminist movement of the 60s and 70s, black women felt left out then. we still feel left out now often in the dialogue. sophia, as a follow-up to that it strikes me that just the very way she is conducting herself is setting an example for young women. i felt like michelle coddle, you know, joan, also just completely missed the fact that having a woman like that with so much grace and so much talent and, you know, again, integrating, as you said, so many different parts of her life, that in and of itself is such a powerful message to young women. it is. and i think, though, that what s important here, look, i think joan said this again. feminism, it s a broad