Right-Wing Media Use Kantor's Book To Race Bait About Michelle Obama

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201201100011

January 10, 2012 12:47 pm ET by Jeremy Holden

Right-wing media figures are distorting a passage in the just-released book, The Obamas, by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, to suggest Michelle Obama harbors antipathy toward "white Irish Catholics." In fact, in the book, Michelle Obama never makes such an assertion -- the phrase was injected into the book by Kantor herself and should in no way be portrayed as the thoughts of Michelle Obama.

Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet cited passages in Kantor's book Monday and reported, "When Michelle Obama worked in Mayor Daley's City Hall in the early 1990s, she was "distressed" by how a small group of 'white Irish Catholic' families -- the Daleys, the Hynes and the Madigans -- 'locked up' power in Illinois."

While the right-wing media have seized on this quote to suggest that Michelle Obama had a particular problem with "white Irish Catholics" wielding power, the full context of the passage makes clear that the concern Kantor ascribed to Michelle Obama's was with entrenched power and political dynasties.

Indeed, the phrase "white Irish Catholic" is Kantor's. It is not sourced to Michelle Obama.

[yardwork]

1. It sounds like the Republican VP is going to be a white male Catholic. Probably Bob McDonnell.

[Pirate Smile]

2. Pres. Obama's VP is a white, Irish, Catholic. Sticking one on the other side doesn't matter.

[yardwork]

4. I agree. It won't help the Republicans. But I think it's their plan.

[Lost-in-FL]

3. Shocking! Tell us something we don't know already.