The far left is in the midst of having a coronary over a Fox News caption that appeared during a segment on Michelle Obama yesterday afternoon. The caption read, “Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama’s Baby Mama!”
Here’s a screen cap (via James Joyner):
As you can see, Michelle Malkin was a part of that segment, and she writes about it here:
Salon is in high dudgeon over a caption that Fox ran during my segment referring to Michelle Obama as Obama’s “baby mama.”
I did not write the caption and I was not aware of it when it ran (the Baltimore studio doesn’t have a monitor). I don’t know if the caption writer was making a lame attempt to be hip, clueless about the original etymology of the phrase, or both. But I do know that it was Michelle Obama herself who referred to Barack as her “baby’s daddy” and has used the phrase “baby daddy” to describe Barack while on the stump this year.
Here’s how she introduced him during his Senate victory speech on Nov. 2, 2004:
MICHELLE OBAMA, WIFE OF BARACK OBAMA: My baby’s daddy Barack Obama. Yeah!
Joyner quips:
Malkin also provides a helpful link to a two-year-old Slate piece with the awkward headline “” that explains that celebrity gossip rags have “seized upon baby-daddy and baby-mama, two useful terms that have long appeared in hip-hop and R&B lyrics, and are slowly stripping them of their emotional fangs.” Apparently, such black luminaries as Tom Cruise and Keven Federline had been referred to as “baby-daddy” even though they were married to the mother of their child.
So, perhaps Fox was secretly signaling that the Obamas are Scientologists?
Lastly, here’s a quick question: Why does Obama’s fellow Senator and campaign co-chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) believe that people who criticize Michelle Obama are going to hell? Surely he can distinguish between baseless personal attacks against a political spouse and legitimate criticisms of things they say? 
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The man who compared American soldiers to Nazis? Ummm…no. Somehow, I don’t think he knows the difference.
Comment by Anthony (Los Angeles) @ 6/12/2008 - 10:51 am
Michelle Obama can certainly refer to her husband as her baby’s daddy, because that is true.
However, using a ghetto term for an unmarried mother is an insult, since it does not apply to this married mother with two degrees from Ivy League Universities, who does not live in a place where such terms are used by polite individuals.
How about everyone start calling Cindy McCain John’s “Junkie Sugar Mama Trophy Wife?” That has considerably more truth to it than the slur directed at a woman who rose above her humble origins.
As Oliver Willis observed, “Why not just call her n****r and get it over with?”
Comment by Repack Rider @ 6/12/2008 - 11:15 am
There is no need for conservatives to call her that name. The Hillary supporters did a fine job in that regard.
Seriously, this is just typical liberal manufactured outrage, much ado over nothing. I’m still waiting for a liberal to get upset over assassination chic towards GWB.
Comment by William Teach @ 6/12/2008 - 11:57 am
Big assumption there, ST. I’m with Anthony on this one. The only distinctions hard-core leftists like Durbin can make are between those things that help them gain/keep power and those things that do not. The former are good, the latter are bad.
Comment by Great White Rat @ 6/12/2008 - 12:22 pm
To people like Durbin, political disagreements have moved beyond being merely criminal to actual evil.
And fine double standard, Repack Rider. Michelle Obama can claim the term but nobody else can use it? Congratulations on the fatuous remark of the day.
Comment by Steve Skubinna @ 6/12/2008 - 1:22 pm
On another board I frequent (non-political) there are pages regarding MM’s comments over Food Network host Rachael Ray and a scarf she wore in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad (since-pulled). The commentary have just come this close to viciously attacking Malkin’s heritage, not to mention her politics.
As for comment #2, ST, you need to make sure this blog doesn’t turn into BlogsForVictory. Matt, Mark, Leo and company, along with a few holdouts from the old days, are being attacked from the left in the comments section at a 60/40 ratio.
Comment by Jeff Harvey @ 6/12/2008 - 1:40 pm
Jeff, don’t worry. I will not let that happen here.
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 6/12/2008 - 1:45 pm
Repack, you might want to click on the text-embedded link “baby daddy” so you can see for yourself that Michelle Obama did indeed use the masculine form of this particular ghetto term in March, 2008, referring to her hubby. The Obamas live where such terms are well understood, and I guess this “married mother with two degrees” is impolite enough to use “baby daddy” when it suits her.
Comment by marybel @ 6/12/2008 - 2:14 pm
Hey Repack, the only time I’ve heard the dreaded N word lately, it’s been used by either blacks themselves, or by other “enlightened” liberals like yourself when describing our current Secretary of State as a House N. Charming eh?
So, you can get your own butt off your high horse before the altitude gives you a nose bleed.
Comment by Severian @ 6/12/2008 - 2:50 pm
And Michelle Malkin is being attacked on her website by people who don’t seem to understand that she did not use the term.
Classic.
Comment by Ryan @ 6/12/2008 - 3:12 pm
Severian, you left out the conscience of the Democrats, Byrd, who uses the word about as often as he changes his underwear. But it’s okay because he’s an ex-Klansman.
Comment by Steve Skubinna @ 6/12/2008 - 4:37 pm
Faux outrage! How appropriate!
Comment by Proof @ 6/12/2008 - 6:56 pm
As long as the libs can focus on things like this the longer they can avoid talking about the issues. The libs remind me of a bunch of children who have never grown up. Whine, Whine. Poor me, I’m a victim.
I understand they have a website now policing the net for negative comments.
Comment by Buckeye @ 6/13/2008 - 8:38 am
Obama wants to be part of the next generation on politicos, and I believe that in some degree he’s pretty much succeeded in presenting himself that way. But there are two problems that he needs to overcome if he wants to in TR’s words “preside over America” successfully.
(Yes, my guess is he will win the election. A guess, mind–not a prediction. I don’t do predictions.)
1. This nonsense over les deux Michelles illustrates one stark fact. The Illinois Kid has to realize that what works in predominantly black distracts doesn’t work in the nation at large. I’m sure Michelle O’s comments were well understood by one of her husband’s constituencies, but not all of them. Imagine, just for fun, if Miley Cyrus addressed the nation in the language of 15-year-old girls. I expect parents everywhere would bring in their daughters for a simultaneous translation. Same here. And as for Michelle M. She didn’t say it, wasn’t responsible for the caption, and so on and so forth. She gets a pass from me.
2. Now, getting back to one way the Illinois Kid can successfully preside over America: Keep that idiot Dick Durbin (one of the most blockheaded of the Senators) away from his campaign and then away from the machinery of government.
Comment by Leslie @ 6/13/2008 - 11:15 am