Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin: So What's the Difference?

Drawing from Mememan's excellent article, "The Double Standard of American Politics", I am taking some liberty to present some of the contents here. I have re-formatted and re-arranged some of Mememan's thoughts to focus mainly on the unequal treatment of Michelle Obama in contrast to Sarah Palin.

Michelle Obama: You graduated from Harvard and Princeton. You were married for years before having your first child. The news media call you "Baby Mama".

Sarah Palin: You run away with your high school sweetheart. You got pregnant before you got married. In the media, you are a great example, a model of what an American mom should be.

Michelle Obama's husband: You studied international affairs for several decades, but they still call you inexperienced at foreign affairs.

Sarah Palin: Your state is close to a foreign country. You can see Russia from Alaska. That qualifies as foreign policy experience. You must be ready to take over as President in case something happens to the ailing President McCain.

Michelle Obama's husband: You write your own speech, and you deliver it in a way that brings millions to tears. No big deal. All you do is give good speeches. You are just a good talker. Nothing more.

Sarah Palin: You read from a teleprompter the words of Matthew Scully, speechwriter of President George Bush. You practice and pout the partisan lines of another. You've just become a rock-star politician. That one speech is enough to catapult you to the White House.

Sarah Palin: You are a conservative Republican. You make it on the cover of People magazine. What an achievement by an ordinary American!

Michelle Obama's husband: You are a Democrat. You are on People magazine's cover. Well, you are a celebrity, an elite.

Michelle Obama's people: You are black. Your teenage daughter gets pregnant, and the father does not want a baby. You're just behaving like what we expect of black people.

Sarah Palin's people: You are white. Your pregnant teenage daughter's boyfriend says on his MySpace site, punctuated with four-letter words, that all he really wants is sex, not kids. You'll do great as America's next VP. You were courageous to haul your daughter's boyfriend into the spotlight at your party's convention.

Sarah Palin: You are a white woman who talks tough. You husband is lucky to be married to a strong woman like that. They describe you as an advocate for women, and they can't understand why America's feminists are not lining up behind you, cheering you on.

Michelle Obama: You are a black woman, and you talk tough just like your white counterpart. You are an angry black woman, a bitter black woman. You are domineering and have too much control over your husband. We don't want you anywhere near the White House as America's first lady.

Can we not see that such double standard helps to color our view of the issues that really matter in our national discourse? Don't we realize that as long as we apply this uneven scale, we'll be stuck with personalities rather than focusing on the real issues that should decide our elections and national future?