Putting Offense on the Defense

I'm giving up being offended, having my feelings hurt, righteous indignation - the whole nine yards. I. Am. Sick. Of. It. I come from a family of women for whom equanimity is a character flaw. We are like princesses for whom the slightest slight is a pea beneath our mattress (worse even than peeing on our mattress). If being offended were an Olympic sport, we'd own the gold medal.

And forget about our national discourse - we're so pleased with our ease of offense, that we get our hackles up as easily about Jamie Lynn Spears as we do about torture, illegal wars, dead soldiers. A common slip of the tongue and, man, ain't we fired up about what a right bastard you are?

Every pundit, politician, and barroom provocateur aspires to Josesph Welch. And if he were standing in front of us today, asking the question he asked Joseph McCarthy, the short answer would have to be no:



Sense of common decency? Who needs it when we have a sense of entitled righteous indignation!

*Edited to note that the irony of me being so offended by people being so offended hit me rather after I wrote this post...

Cindy Effin McCain

I was thinking about lots of things I wanted to write about this weekend... but I keep going back to Cindy McCain and her shitty, snide comment about Michelle Obama. Aren't we over these nostalgic Ameri-freaks yet? Aren't we tired of being lectured on patriotism by people who've never suffered the myriad slights, indignities, and outright outrages suffered by folks who don't march in perfect lockstep? The thing about these people is that they've never been poor, they've never been black, they've never been particularly introspective or empathetic. Pride in country is pretty easy when country has always been generous to you. Why care about civil rights if you're not a minority? Why be worried about feminism, if you're rich enough to find a doctor to declare your abortions medically necessary? Why worry about equal pay when you're just going to inherit your money?

Michelle Obama, on the other hand (in the interest of full disclosure: Michelle Obama has recently ousted Starbuck from my number one girl crush position) has suffered the slights and indignities. She is smart and empathetic. And she is interested in making the world better instead of returning to Mayberry (especially since Mayberry would have sucked for her). So when she says she feels really proud of her country, it means something and it makes me feel really proud of my country too.

I really like Barack Obama a lot. I think he'll be a great president. But part of me thinks the biggest reason I like Barack so much is that I have faith and confidence in a man who marries a woman like Michelle Obama. It says a lot about who he is.