In a commencement ceremony address to Morehouse College yesterday in Atlanta, President Obama made a joke at his wife Michelle's expense.
"I see some moms and grandmas here, aunts, in their Sunday best -- although they are upset about their hair getting messed up. (Laughter.) Michelle would not be sitting in the rain. (Laughter.) She has taught me about hair. (Laughter.)," said Obama, according to the White House press office.
But elsewhere, Obama praised his wife, the first lady:
I was raised by a heroic single mom, wonderful grandparents -- made incredible sacrifices for me. And I know there are moms and grandparents here today who did the same thing for all of you. But I sure wish I had had a father who was not only present, but involved. Didn’t know my dad. And so my whole life, I’ve tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father was not for my mother and me. I want to break that cycle where a father is not at home -- (applause) -- where a father is not helping to raise that son or daughter. I want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man.
It’s hard work that demands your constant attention and frequent sacrifice. And I promise you, Michelle will tell you I’m not perfect. She’s got a long list of my imperfections. (Laughter.) Even now, I’m still practicing, I'm still learning, still getting corrected in terms of how to be a fine husband and a good father. But I will tell you this: Everything else is unfulfilled if we fail at family, if we fail at that responsibility. (Applause.)
“Oprah was demoted from her first job as a news anchor, and now she doesn’t even need a last name,” she said of media giant Oprah Winfrey. “And then there’s this guy Barack Obama … he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband.”
The first lady joked: “I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures.”
President Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in 1996, is now set to be honored a gay lobbying group in Los Angeles.
"Former President Bill Clinton will be honored with an award for his advocacy for gay marriage, gay and lesbian lobbying group GLAAD said on Wednesday," Reuters reports.
Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation debated CNN's Piers Morgan and his guest, Suze Orman, about same-sex marriage Tuesday night. Morgan concluded the debate by saying he found Anderson's position "a bit offensive." "It's not fair, it's not tolerant, it's not American," said the British-born host.
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as being between couples of the opposite sex. Today they’re hearing them on the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman at the federal level. Like Roe v. Wade, the high court’s decision on these cases is likely to fuel the culture war for a generation or two, at least. Unlike with Roe, the Court seems to understand that it’s been handed an issue of enormous consequence.
In a speech near his Chicago home today, President Barack Obama got personal. He talked of the importance of family, using himself and his own experience as an example.
Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, told the New York Times that his wife offered to stay married to him, if he was planning to run for president. The first couple of Colorado is currently separated.
Perhaps the finest book ever written on the natural complementarity of the sexes and on marriage as the core building block of civil society was written by a Swiss who was then living in France. (The book is Emile, and the author is Jean-Jacques Rousseau.) So when
I’m burning with envy. Here I’ve been plugging away of late in places like Oklahoma City and Scottsdale.Meanwhile, both Susan Mary Alsop and Kati Marton, heroines of two ostensibly different books, had a much better idea.
As our lawmakers—newly reminded of the power of female voters—huddle to strategize about the “fiscal cliff,” they have an opportunity to address a real threat to female prosperity: a tax code that is disproportionately burdensome to married women, especially working moms.
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