Inside Politics

Closed ears

The press almost totally ignored Michelle Obama’s observation last week that the $600 stimulus check taxpayers received from Uncle Sam was only enough to buy a pair of earrings.

The Washington Times political reporter Ralph Z. Hallow notes that when he mentioned the incident in separate phone conversations with several well-known political commentators, the response from each was, “She said what? How come I haven’t heard that before now?”

Why indeed? Mrs. Obama, who has been tagged as an elitist by foes, again opened herself to that charge, but the press (and John McCain’s campaign) seemed to be focused exclusively on the gaffe McCain surrogate Phil Gramm made in saying Americans were a nation of whiners when it comes to the economy.

That same day, Mrs. Obama, addressing a women’s panel in Pontiac, Mich., with Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm in the audience, answered a question about the economic stimulus checks mailed by the U.S. government earlier this year.

“You’re getting $600,” she said to the audience of mostly black women. “What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month.”

She added: “Barack’s approach is that the short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good. And it may even feel good that first month when you get that check. And then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings.”

Cover story

Barack Obama’s campaign lashed out at the editors of the New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover that depicts the Democratic candidate and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists, the New York Daily News reports.

The magazine’s editor described the cartoon, called “The Politics of Fear,” as satire. The Obama campaign called it “tasteless and offensive.”

The Illinois senator is depicted in traditional Muslim garb in the Barry Blitt illustration set in the Oval Office.

His wife, Michelle, is in fatigues, sporting an Angela Davis-style sky-high Afro, an AK-47 slung over her shoulder.

A portrait of terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden hangs above the fireplace, in which an American flag is set ablaze.

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.

‘Fingers of blame’

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