The American Dream
I fell in love with Barack Obama the first moment I shook his hand. Before you all go getting scared thinking this is going to turn into a political piece, you can stop your mini-freakout right now. One, I don’t play that way (I even watched the election with a roomful of Obama haters) and two, HELLO, this is a piece about LOVE. The only thing time my personal politics get involved is when a guy acts like a tool and then I – quite democratically, I think – weigh the pros and cons of dumping him.
Anyhoo, I digress. Yes, I did meet the man himself just before he won his first Presidential election in 2008, and really, to meet him is to love him. He has one of the steadiest characters, the most magnetic pulls, I’ve ever encountered. I’m sure something similar happened when he met the love of his life, First Lady Michelle Obama except, you know, she was sexually attracted to him. Which, let the record show, I very much am NOT.
However, I DO love him. And I love how much he clearly loves his wife.
The two met in 1989. She was then Michelle Robinson, working at a law firm as an adviser to a summer associate from Harvard Law. That associate was Barack Obama.
Though it’s a rare thing that business and pleasure work out (and as it happens, it didn’t — his career in law ended in a much more lateral move), the two quickly fell in love.
“We clicked right away…by the end of the date it was over…I was sold,” Michelle has said of their first date.
By all appearances, he feels the same way. The one moment of his re-election speech that truly touched me was his verbal love letter to his wife…while the world watched.
Said our Prez last night in Chicago’s Grant Park: “And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady.”
I mean, swoon. It’s like he’s a rock star, and he’s dedicated his best album to her…in the liner notes (my secret fantasy).
Anyway, the point here is that THIS is the American dream. THIS is what we strive for. THIS is why we keep kissing toads, frogs and amphibians of countless kinds — to have the kind of loving relationship that Barack and Michelle still share after 20 years, two kids, and two incredibly stressful presidencies.
You may not agree with his politics, but I defy anyone to NOT respect the love Barack Obama has for his wife.
Sir, I salute you.
