Patterico's Pontifications

4/6/2013

Michelle Obama: It’s Tough Being a Busy Single Mother

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:08 am



Michelle Obama temporarily referred to herself as a “single mother”:

First lady Michelle Obama accidentally referred to herself as a “single mother” during a local TV interview Thursday — before swiftly correcting herself.

She made the comment during an interview with the CBS affiliate in Burlington, Vt.

While discussing efforts to help under-served communities, the first lady tried to make the point that she’s been in the shoes of a “busy” mother.

“Believe me, as a busy, single mother,” she said, before pausing to correct herself. “Or, I shouldn’t say single — as a busy mother, sometimes you know when you’ve got the husband who’s president, it can feel a little single. But he’s there.”

Thanks to JVW, who adds his own commentary that is worthy of inclusion in this post:

Can we all please step back a moment from our selfish and self-centered lives and ruminate on how difficult it must be to raise children when your husband is President of the United States? I mean it has to be tough, what with coordinating the maids, butlers, chefs, gardners, chauffers, personal secretaries, security detail, gofers, press agents, and other underlings that one gets by virture of living in the White House. And it sucks that the girls can’t spend more time with daddy because he is off on a golf vacation in Florida or they are kicking it as a ski resort in Sun Valley. Next time you are stuck in traffic trying to get the kids delivered from afternoon swim practice to their evening church group meeting and wondering if you might have time to swing through the Taco Bell drive-through to get them something to eat and realizing that you are supposed to pick your spouse up at the airport when she returns from her week-long business trip at 11:00 pm, just remember that Michelle Obama is struggling even more than you are.

Some math: golf takes six hours when all is said and done.

“It’s the only time that for six hours, I’m outside,” Obama told CBS News.

According to the very useful site the Obama Golf Counter, Obama has played 115 rounds of golf as President. 115 times six makes 690 hours of playing golf. There are 40 hours in a standard work week. 690 (number of golf hours played) divided by 40 (number of hours in a standard work week) is 17.25. That’s over 17 work weeks of playing golf — more than four work months.

I’m not sure why that comes to mind in this post, but it does for some reason. (Whistles innocently.)

SWATting on Selena Gomez

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:08 am



In the fourth celebrity SWATting in three days, Selena Gomez was the victim of an (attempted) SWATting yesterday, just after the same thing had happened to Justin Timberlake:

At 3:15 p.m. Friday, officers responded to a call of shots fired at Timberlake’s Hollywood Hills home but found nothing unusual, said LAPD spokeswoman Norma Eisenman.

Less than two hours later, police were sent to Gomez’s home in Sherman Oaks after a caller reported “someone had been killed inside the residence and there was a threat to burn the home down,” said Det. Gus Villanueva. The report was false, Villanueva said.

And now, for the traditional (incomplete) roll call of those SWATted: Selena Gomez; Justin Timberlake; Rihanna; Sean Combs; Chris Brown; Tom Cruise; Paris Hilton; Clint Eastwood; Brian Krebs; the Jenners and Kardashians; Justin Bieber; Miley Cyrus; Ashton Kutcher; Simon Cowell; Aaron Walker; Erick Erickson; Mike Stack; and me.

Please remember: celebrities are the ones who count. The L.A. Times says:

Law enforcement officials said they are becoming increasingly irritated by the crank calls, which they say divert resources from responding to real crimes.

. . . .

The increasing number of such incidents targeting celebrities has California lawmakers considering implementing harsher penalties for such crimes.

In my case, the call was made at 12:16 a.m. on a weeknight, when I was certain to be home, and police officers pointed guns at me at my front door. In virtually every case involving a celebrity, the “SWATting” happened during the day and the celebrity was not home. Yet those are the cases that get all the attention, because, you know, celebrities.

UPDATE: I read a report somewhere that claimed Gomez was not home, but the Toronto Sun says she and her mom were home. I have corrected the headline and post (by removing the word “attempted”) to reflect that this was a true SWATTing.


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