On Facebook the other day, one of my friends offered her services as an English tutor — and included a grammatical error in her offer.  Admittedly, it was an error that involved a usage that has been changing over time, but I still expect an English tutor to avoid this particular mistake.  Even if her usage is correct colloquially, it doesn’t pass muster in grammar books.

Don Quixote, to whom I told this story, said that I’m fighting a rearguard battle here.  I certainly agree with him that language changes (otherwise we’d all sound Shakespearean), but the fact remains that there are rules of grammar, and that good writers and speakers know these rules.  Nor are these rules merely useless holdovers from older, more formal times.  Many developed to advance one specific goal:  clarity.  If you assemble the parts of your sentence in accordance with strict grammatical rules, you need not fear that it will be open to misinterpretation.  The writer (and speaker) who controls his dangling or misplaced modifiers, random pronouns, subject verb disagreements, etc., is the writer who actually gets his message across.

Immediately after having delivered my ringing endorsement for good grammar, I turned on the radio and got proof that I’m right.  I heard a snippet of Michelle Obama’s CBS interview, the one in which she rebutted the charge that she’s an angry black woman.  Through the miracles of mangled grammar, though, even as she claimed that the charge is untrue, Michelle explicitly stated that Barack Obama himself has “announced” that she is an angry black woman:

 … I guess it’s more interesting to imagine this conflicted situation here and a strong woman and– you know? But that’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I’m some angry black woman.  (Emphasis mine.)

Even with the comma that CBS helpfully inserted, the sentence reads as follows:  “That’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced that I’m some angry black woman.”  Certainly when I heard Michelle on the radio, I did a double-take and had to rewind the sentence in my mind to figure out that she meant to say that, “Since the day Barack announced that he was running for president, people have tried to paint me as some angry black woman.”

Whether you’re speaking or writing, grammar matters — unless you’re comfortable telling the world that your husband stands in the forefront of people contending that you are indeed an angry black woman.

If you’ve been trolling the internet at all the lost couple of days, you’re aware by now that Christopher Knight, who has what is apparently a paying gig at the Los Angeles Times, has taken umbrage at a political cartoon likening the profligate Mrs. Obama to Marie Antoinette, who was herself no slouch at spending other people’s money.  If you haven’t heard about this kerfuffle, let me lead you through it.

First, here’s the original Marie Antoinette portrait and the companion political cartoon:

And second, Christopher Knight’s fevered fulminations:

A baldly racist depiction of First Lady Michelle Obama that appeared Tuesday on a right-wing website is based on a 1775 portrait of Marie Antoinette by Jean-Baptiste André Gautier-Dagoty (1740-1786). The full-length painting hangs outside Paris in the Palace of Versailles.

The Internet image grafts Obama’s face onto Gautier-Dagoty’s lavish depiction of the French queen, dressed in full regalia. It also replaces the draped left arm of the young monarch, then barely 20, with a muscular black arm and shifts the position of the right hand to place it in front of a world globe.

The caricature of Obama as a profligate queen relies on the racist stereotype of an “uppity Negro,” which emerged among slave masters in an earlier American era. Obama, born into a working-class Chicago family whose roots are traced to the pre-Civil War South, graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, prior to holding several high-level positions in the academic and private sectors.

The racist image appeared Tuesday on the right-wing blog Gateway Pundit; the slur was later called out by Media Matters for America. A post by Gateway blogger Jim Hoft paired the picture with a clip of the first lady’s guest appearance on a forthcoming episode of “iCarly,” a Nickelodeon sit-com. In the script, Obama commends the cast for their support of military families. Responding to a cast member who mistakenly addresses her as “your excellency,” the script has Obama jokingly reply, “I kinda like it.”

The doctored painting also turned up in August 2010 on the right-wing Instapundit website, where it apparently originated.

You can read the rest here, if you want a laugh and have a strong stomach.

I’m not usually moved to comment on MSM articles (too many comments mean mine get buried, a dreadful fate for an egotist), but this time I couldn’t resist.  Here, in its entirety, is my comment:

Dear Mr. Knight: I’ve pretty much ignored the whole zombie phenomenon, thinking it’s kind of stupid to fear the living dead. (I find the actual living much more frightening.) Your post, however, is causing me to rethink my rejection of the zombie trope, because you have just provided living (or, rather, undead) proof that zombies are actually sucking people’s brains out.

Is it possible that you’re unaware of Marie Antoinette’s reputation for living extravagantly while the ordinary people around her starved in the street? And are you unable to make the connection between Marie Antoinette’s reputation (and she was Austrian, by the way, not African American) and the fact that Michelle Obama just recently went on a $4 million tax payer funded vacation, while wearing $1,200 sundresses, even as Americans have been struggling desperately with unemployment and rising prices? For the informed mind (or just the living mind), the comparisons are inevitable, appropriate and non-racist.

Sherlock Holmes famously said that “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Since it must be impossible for a major publication such as the Los Angeles Times to have hired an idiot, the improbable truth we are dealing with is that, since being hired, you have had your brain sucked out by zombies.

I was talking with a friend (he knows who he is) about the uniforms we wear.  The military imposes uniforms on its members, but most of us impose uniforms upon ourselves.

Because I’m quite petite (being both short and reasonably slender) and because I have matching small feet, it is extremely hard for me to find clothes.  Add to that the fact that I don’t like to shop and my husband doesn’t like for me to spend money and you end up with a very limited fashion repertoire:  My tops are long sleeved or short sleeved t-shirts, in whatever colors come in my size (no designs, just colors), and my bottoms are jeans and yoga pants.  On my feet, clogs, which are extremely comfortable; last forever; give me an extra two inches of height without the agony of heels; and slip on and off easily, as I’m a barefoot person.  Although I was a fashion plate in my 20s (when they still made petites for short people not medium ones, and when I thought I had money to burn), my style today is very utilitarian.

I’m waffling on here with a point in mind.  At Michelle Obama’s Mirror, there’s an entertaining photo essay about Michelle’s unique style.  I make no comments about her figure.  She’s a women in her late 40s with two children.  She’s fit and healthy.  That makes for a fine figure as far as I’m concerned.  Having a fine figure, though, is not the same as having good taste in clothes.  And really, Michelle has no excuse for her unflattering clothing choices.  She’s got fashion consultants, money (that she spends like water), and she’s tall enough for there to be available clothes out there.  The bottom line is that she simply has no taste — and she’s surrounded by a bunch of sycophants who routinely applaud her errors.

Here’s the video of a speech Obama gave at the Transition Ceremony for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  You need only watch the first 40 or so seconds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s my transcript of those seconds:

Thank you very much.  Secretary Panetta, thank you for your introduction and your extraordinary leadership.  To Members of Cong, Vice President Biden, Members of the Joint Chiefs, Service Secretaries, distinguished guests, and men and women of the finest military in the world.   Most of all, Admiral Mullen, Deborah, Michael and I also want to acknowledge your son Jack who’s deployed today.

Who is Michael?  Thomas Lifson argues that Obama is such an empty vessel that, when he reads his teleprompter, he’s not even listening to himself.  He posits, further, that the teleprompter said “Michelle” and that Obama misread it as “Michael,” and didn’t correct himself, because he’s not paying attention to the words being fed into his own mouth.

What do you think?

A video is making the rounds.  Taking during the flag folding portion of the 9/11 ceremonies, it shows Michelle Obama whispering in Barack’s ear.  He responds with a nod and a suppressed grin.  Here, see for yourself:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I dislike Michelle Obama every bit as much as the next person, but absent a credible lip reader, I’m not quite ready to dive into this one.  It’s entirely possible that she said something innocuous, although it was inappropriate and ill-mannered to give voice to it at precisely that moment.

It was Obama’s nod and grin that I found more upsetting.  No matter what Michelle said, good, bad or ugly, that he should be smiling when the flag is being folded is so disrespectful, it’s actually hard to comprehend.  Having a little joke with his wife at that moment flies into the face of his role as the leader of our country presiding over a moment of deep grief and solemnity.  He should have been stone faced, not taking time out for a pleasant little kaffee klatch with the missus.

How did the American people invite these crass, self-centered egotists into the White House?

Michelle Obama’s fashion advisors must really hate her.  Otherwise, how do you explain a dress that is so incredibly unflattering?  First rule of women’s fashion — never, never wear clothes that give you the underarm equivalent of a muffin top.  Also, referring to my post yesterday, my friend is right, in that Michelle looks miserable.

I need help from you guys developing a thought.  The thought started with this picture of Michelle Obama in a deep-veed, fluffy blouse; a saggy sweater; a bondage belt; and the gypsy skirt from hell:

Aside from the fact that the picture pretty much puts the lie forever to the media’s desparate attempt to liken Michelle to Jacquie O, I think Michelle’s completely bewildered clothing speaks to something deeper about what society’s Leftist grip does to women’s self image.

I’m thinking about the difference between elegance and femininity, as opposed to a sort of trashy, hard-edged “feminism” that equates female sexuality, which can be beautiful and graceful, with Hustler-esque sex.  There’s definitely been a trend in the past years that cheapens, rather than elevates, women, and this trend has marched hand-in-hand with the radicalization of feminism.

Recall, if you will, that feminism was originally sold as a way to ensure that women got equal rights under the law and equal opportunities.  It’s now morphed into some shrill Leftist monster that says women should have sex like a porn star, be able to cry rape at will, get opportunities denied to men, ignore the plight of their truly oppressed sisters around the world, forgive rapists as long as they’re “good” presidents, get more than equal pay for unequal work, etc.  At precisely the same time women stopped being women and started being these weird Frankenstein monsters, the concept of attractiveness and feminity in clothing vanished — something I’ve bemoaned my entire adult life.

In other words, I think this picture speaks to something larger about the way women, for all their greater earning power and societal presence, have lost something over the last 30 years.

I know I’m old-fashioned, and getting more so with every passing day, but I’m pretty sure “viva la difference” didn’t mean you guys look like effete metrosexuals and we gals look like bondage vixens.

I’m noticing an interesting pattern in Obama’s Muslim speeches.  He thinks it’s a very good thing for women to cover up.  In his Cairo speech, he made that point, not once, not twice, but three times.  As I caught in the post I wrote at the time, he said:

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That’s why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it. (Applause.)

[snip]

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit — for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can’t disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

[snip]

The sixth issue — the sixth issue that I want to address is women’s rights. (Applause.) I know –- I know — and you can tell from this audience, that there is a healthy debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality.

That obsession with women’s attire might have been aberrant but for the fact that, at tonight’s White House Ramadan celebration, Obama brought it up again (emphasis mine):

The president paid special tribute to Kareem Khan, who “made the ultimate sacrifice” when he died serving in Iraq, Nashala Hearn, who won the right to wear a hijab in school, Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, who holds the record for the most points scored by a high school basketball player in Massachusetts, and Muhammad Ali, who – though he couldn’t attend – is “a man of quiet dignity and grace and continues to fight for what he believes.”

Why, oh why, is Obama so impressed with Muslim women wrapping their heads?  His he just part of the same trendy Left wing cadre that thinks head coverings are a cool fashion statement by which enlightened Islamic feminists thumb their nose at men?  Naomi Wolf, American “feminist” and nutcase, believes this to be so:

The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling – toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.

Outside the walls of the typical Muslim households that I visited in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt, all was demureness and propriety. But inside, women were as interested in allure, seduction and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.

At home, in the context of marital intimacy, Victoria’s Secret, elegant fashion and skin care lotions abounded. The bridal videos that I was shown, with the sensuous dancing that the bride learns as part of what makes her a wonderful wife, and which she proudly displays for her bridegroom, suggested that sensuality was not alien to Muslim women. Rather, pleasure and sexuality, both male and female, should not be displayed promiscuously – and possibly destructively – for all to see.

Wolf would benefit from reading Phyllis Chesler’s response to her inane article, in which Chesler emphasizes the reality for the vast majority of those Muslim woman wrapped up in movable tents:

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?

Most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags, not expensive Western clothing beneath their coverings. Only the pampered, super-controlled, often isolated, and uber-materialistic daughters of wealth, mainly in the Gulf states, but also among the ruling classes in the Islamic world, match Wolf’s portrait of well kept courtesan-wives.

Being veiled and obedient does not save a Muslim girl or woman from being incested, battered, stalked, gang-raped, or maritally raped nor does it stop her husband from taking multiple wives and girlfriends or from frequenting brothels. A fully “covered” girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day.

So does Obama side with Wolf or does he understand the reality that Chesler articulates?

Or are we looking in the wrong place altogether when it comes to Obama’s hijab obsession.  Maybe he’s just dreaming that, one day, he can replace this angry face:

With this, all signs of anger neatly hidden away:

UPDATE: To those who I’m mocking Michelle for being ugly, I’m not.   I don’t think she’s the raving beauty the MSM would have us believe, but there’s nothing wrong with how she looks. It’s the anger that’s in her face whenever she’s not actively smiling. That is one very, very angry woman.  That can’t be a nice thing in a marriage.  A burqa wouldn’t make the anger go away, but you wouldn’t have to see it all the time.  I’ve updated the captions for the photos a bit to show that my emphasis is on personality, not looks.

A few days ago, the University of California at Merced announced that the First Lady’s commencement address cost this public institution a fortune — although it hastened to assure us that most of the cost would be covered, not by California’s overburdened taxpayers, but by private donors.

The nation’s overburdened taxpayers, it seems, are not so lucky when it comes to Michelle’s other expenses.  News has now trickled out that her staff is so large the budget is almost three times what Laura Bush’s budget was (and Mrs. Bush, you’ll recall, was First Lady during flush economic times).  Scary as those numbers are, they must be worse for Michelle’s tourist jaunt to Europe with her little girls.  Despite the fact that you and I paid for it, the White House refuses to release that bill.

As Marie Antoinette learned to her cost, during an economic down time it is dangerous to engage in conspicuous consumption using other people’s money — especially money from people who aren’t voluntarily donating it, but are forced at gunpoint to give it.  In this case, it is particularly galling because Our Esteemed Leader has appointed himself green preacher-in-chief, telling us that, in order to save the world, we have to drive tin cans, live and work in freezingly cold or bakingly hot buildings, stop eating meat, and generally return ourselves to all the discomforts of a preindustrial era.  Meanwhile, he and the missus jet off for out of town for dates, have Kobe beef dinners, keep the White House at sauna temperature, show off expensive clothes (although those, I suspect, are gifts), and generally live high on our hog.

I’m feeling the urge to storm the Bastille.

UPDATE:  We can be grateful, at least, that Barack Obama, his narcissism and pretensions notwithstanding, is more normal, and has less scope for his narcissism, than Kim Jong Il.  (As for the latter, it’s possible he is dying, but equally possible that, like Castro, he’ll live on as a semi-dessicated corpse forever.)

By now, all of you are familiar with the Obama administration’s effort to shut down an Inspector General who was making life uncomfortable for a big Obama supporter.  IG Walpin contended that Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson was misusing federal funds (to the tune of $800,000 plus) for his personal benefit.  The vehicle for this taxpayer fraud was AmeriCorps.  AmeriCorps, in turn, is a subsidiary of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Immediately after the Sacramento scandal started unfolding, it began to look as if Michelle Obama had a finger in this pie.  Michelle Malkin now thinks it’s possible that Michelle Obama has a whole hand in the pie:

Guess where the First Lady will be on Monday?

Why, she’ll be delivering the keynote address at the 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco.

And who is co-sponsoring the conference?

Why, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)!

[snip]

And now, there is no honest, independent watchdog to raise questions on behalf of taxpayers as the Obama political machine takes over the national service juggernaut. How…convenient.

By the way: The First Lady’s former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, starts her new job as “senior adviser” (translation: Michelle O’s mole) at CNCS on Monday. And from the AmeriCorps press release published yesterday:

“The First Lady has made service and volunteering a life calling, and her leadership is helping to inspire a whole new generation of Americans who are making service a part of their daily lives,” said Nicola Goren, Acting CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “Her participation demonstrates the high priority the White House has placed on service as a way to help in our nation’s recovery.”

“First Lady Michelle Obama knows first-hand the power of service to transform lives and communities,” said Michelle Nunn, CEO of the Points of Light Institute and co-founder of HandsOn Network. “We are thrilled that she chose our national conference as the platform to launch United We Serve. She has made service a centerpiece of her agenda, and her appearance will add a burst of excitement and a new significance to this gathering of service leaders as well as our larger efforts to usher in a new era of service.”

I first raised questions about the First Lady’s meddling into the AmeriCrooks mess on June 12 after following up on little-noticed reports in the niche publication Youth Today detailing Mrs. Obama’s active role and interest in staffing the top management at CNCS.

Read the rest here, including the unseemly spectacle of San Francisco politicos and big-wigs scrambling to touch the hem of Mrs. Obama’s dress.