Published: May 14, 2008 02:09 pm            

Randy Sheridan: The new first lady ... or first lad

For obvious reasons the bulk of attention during this year’s presidential race has centered on the candidates themselves along with some imposing issues. But behind every good man, or woman, is a potential first lady or first lad.

Granted, the distractions have been numerous. Hillary Clinton’s claim of landing in Bosnia under sniper fire took her campaign from the front lines to the back of the bus. She stated they had to “keep their heads down and run to the waiting vehicles.”

One problem. That’s not what happened at all. Interestingly CBS was there and did a follow up of the trip 12 years later almost to the day. They showed her getting off the plane, greeting children and even standing in a guard tower looking over the terrain.

What made it worse was when she was asked about it repeatedly, she became adamant regarding the details of what transpired on that trip. It’s beginning to sound like Bill’s claim, “I did not have sex with that woman!” referring to Monica Lewinsky.

Later, she joined Sinbad and Cheryl Crowe in a little USO entertainment at the base. If her head was down during this visit, none of it was seen on camera or maybe it was down in the sand.

She has endured the distraction of a former president as well, her husband. Bill Clinton, who doesn’t seem to know how to politely fade into the back seat, does know how to garner attention for the wrong reasons.

Even during President Bush’s first inauguration, Clinton’s departed amid pomp and circumstance never before seen in an unscrupulous attempt to steal the thunder of the incoming commander-in-chief. Well, Mrs. Clinton seems to be receiving some of her own medicine.

He can’t seem to keep his mouth shut or his pants zipped up long enough to give her the stage. Her advisors have been livid on more than one occasion with his ability to open mouth and insert foot. I heard that one of Hillary Clinton’s supporters offered him an indefinite vacation on an island resort with a McDonald’s and interns to boot.

Of course, we don’t know a great deal about Barak Obama’s wife, Michelle, but all of that is changing the more she talks. Unfortunately we do know an awful lot about his pastor — Jeremiah Wright. Or is it his former pastor?

Reverend Wright’s perceived hatred for America and strong racial discrimination against white Americans seems to be one giant step backwards for mankind. Does this man of the cloth really read his Bible?

But let’s get back to the potential first lady, Michelle Obama. Obviously a well-educated individual, and yet some of the contempt and vitriol that pours through her speeches is a bit scary to say the least. Obama’s own staff advised her to tone down the sarcasm and negative rhetoric. It was not very becoming of a future first lady.

Even liberal columnist Maureen O’Dowd weighed in. In a press account of her sarcasm, the New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd said: “I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal — comic routine that rests on the presumption that we see him as a god ....”

She continued, “But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam JFK into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffin. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk this mystique?”

Then she dropped a political bombshell that rocked a few newspaper racks across the country: On Feb. 18, Michelle Obama commented in Milwaukee, Wisc., that “for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Then, there is the well polished entrepreneur Cindy McCain. Like the Obamas, the McCains chose to keep their primary residence out of Washington D.C. to raise their families in more stable environment.

John McCain’s wife has been involved in a number of projects that raised the public’s awareness, such as the American Voluntary Medical Team. In 1988, inspired by a vacation visit to substandard medical facilities on Truk Lagoon, Cindy McCain founded the AVMT.

The nonprofit organization organized trips for doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to provide MASH-like emergency medical care to disaster-struck or war-torn third-world areas such as Micronesia, Vietnam. She led 55 of these missions over the next seven years, with each being of at least two weeks’ duration. AVMT also supplied treatment to poor sick children around the world.

While at Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh, in 1991 after the cyclone — she met two infant girls she decided needed to be brought to the United States for medical treatment. She adopted one of the girls and helped make arrangements for the other.

I must admit that it’s a bit difficult imagining a “loose canon” filled with contempt as first lady or Bill wandering around “unleashed” as first lad among interns galore.

Though I must admit to you that I did not support John McCain in the primaries; his wife Cindy McCain gets my support. As Rush Limbaugh suggests, I’m seriously thinking about “crossing over” and voting for John McCain.



Randy Sheridan of Burleson

is a speaker, counselor and

mediator. He can be reached

at drsheridan@aol.com.

        

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