I've been away for a week - visiting Tennessee and Pennsylvania - so I missed the outcry over Mrs. Obama's comments about taking pride in her country for the first time in her adult life.  Her statement doesn't offend me but  - just when I was thinking about dipping my toe in the Obama Ocean - her words do encapsulate almost all of what it is that makes it impossible for me to take the Obama baptismal dip.

Mrs. Obama and a great number of  Obama-ites in many ways seem totally oblivious to the lives of those about whom they claim to care a great deal.  While I understand that a lot of Obama supporters are very young and/or new to the political process, I am surprised that Michelle Obama - an astute campaigner as well as a highly educated and intelligent person who is only eight years younger that I am - is so oblivious to the world in which she has grown up and lived.   Obviously Mrs. Obama - as an African American woman - has experienced things that I have not.  I am sure she has encountered racism that I would hope no longer existed in our country.  

Senator Obama - striving to put her comments in context - spoke of her frustation and disillusionment with the political system, again I acknowledge these feelings and have felt them myself as well.  However, to say that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction” is to exhibit a staggering narcisism.  In addition, it belittles all of those - black, white, yellow, brown, young, old - who have been striving in the very actions of their daily lives to hold the United States accountable for its great promise.  And by holding the United States accountable I don't necessarily mean participating in the political process, sometimes believing in the American dream means just getting up every day and going to work even though life is bitterly hard; it means tutoring in the literacy project at a church or school; it means seeing people standing on their roofs after Katrina and sending $10 to the Red Cross; it means fighting against gang and gun violence when your child has been the victim of a drive by shooting.  All of these people make me proud of my country.

I spent most of the weekend travelling by car through part of western Pennsylvania.  Many of the towns I drove through have been devastated by the loss of manufacturing.  In some places there were more boarded up storefronts than there were operating businesses and yet, without exception, the American flag flew proudly in front of stores and homes all over these towns.  In several areas, MIA flags flew as well and most town squares had  banners supporting the local men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Inside the local bars where I would stop for a couple of  beers and rounds of darts, the patrons were eager to give directions, offer up recommendations for a place to eat, talk for a few minutes about the economy.  A lot of the people I met probably wouldn't agree with my politics -  although a surprising number might - but just driving through the towns gave me a renewed respect for the hard working men and women who are the backbone of our nation.  These are people who have not given up, who have sent their sons and daughters, husbands and wives off to fight an unpopular war; people who have felt the burden of a changing economy for years, not just in the wake of the subprime crisis.  All of these people make me proud of my country.

Mrs. Obama's comments aren't offensive; they are uniformed, they are disrespectful, they are self absorbed.  They are, in short, everything I have come to expect from the Obama campaign.