Glass Houses

I have no idea who Meghan Daum is, but she has an interesting op-ed in the L.A. Times:

A few weeks ago I was at the Denver airport when I overheard a conversation between two men sitting near me. They were eating some form of grab-and-go airport lunch when one man, between bites, suddenly raised his voice and called Michelle Obama something that can't be printed in a family newspaper.

"She wants to control what we eat!" he continued. "She wants the government to be in charge of what's in our fridge!"

These were respectable-looking businessmen: mid-40s, Dockers, wedding bands, cellphones on belts. I wouldn't have expected either one of them to burst forth with an obscenity, especially not in the United terminal, surrounded by innocent children and people trying to enjoy their Cinnabons.

...

Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann accused Obama of trying to implement a "nanny state." Sarah Palin gave her a ribbing on her reality show when, while searching for s'mores ingredients for a camping trip, she said, "This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who the other day said we shouldn't have dessert."

Oh, and then there's that paragon of physical fitness, Rush Limbaugh, who suggested last week that the first lady "does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue."

What's going on here (besides the last gasps of an increasingly irrelevant radio blowhard) obviously has nothing to do with keeping kids from being obese. Surely even the most obtuse tea partyers know deep down that Michelle Obama is not planning to force-feed you vegetables and hijack your desserts any more than Laura Bush, who advocated for reading, was interested in foisting books on people and carting away their televisions. Instead, Republicans are turning a patently apolitical issue into an opportunity to bash the president ...

Maybe if the rhetoric surrounding Michelle Obama's efforts was confined to budget issues, it would be defensible, but as it stands, it's astonishingly ugly. Attacks on the president come with the job. With the exception of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who effectively waived her rights to be treated like a traditional first lady, Michelle Obama is taking an unprecedented beating.

For those keeping score, the unprecedented beating Daum cites are accusations that the First Lady is trying to implement a nanny state, take away dessert, and doesn't look like a swimsuit model (plus the comments of two strangers in an airport terminal). However, the columnist felt perfectly comfortable mocking Limbaugh's size and calling him a blowhard.

You can't write a column complaining about name-calling while calling your political opponents names. It simply doesn't work.