If you think Michelle Obama is after your freedom because she merely suggests that our kids should exercise more and eat a little broccoli along with their lard, you don't deserve a place in the free market of ideas. You belong at the Cheesecake Factory. She's not Stalin because she notices your kids sweat Mountain Dew.
And yet this is bigger than America's ass---hard to believe, but indulge me. This is about the Tea Baggers' fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between freedom and the freedom to never be told anything---like avoid food served in a bucket. It's just a tradition that the first ladies get to pick some mundane---and up until now, noncontroversial--- cause to promote. Lady Bird Johnson: beautifying America. Barbara Bush had literacy. Betty Ford's was no hard liquor before 10 a.m. Our previous first lady, Laura Bush, worked tirelessly against illiteracy, so between her efforts and her husband's, it was a tie. Hillary Clinton did pioneering work in looking the other way. I'm just saying, if your husband can convince you that the bra in the bed probably fell in at the mattress factory, you can overlook Hosni Mubarak.
When I look at a moon pie, I just see sugar and trans fat, not my constitutional freedoms. But Sarah Palin brought sugar cookies to a school as a protest against the government telling the school what to eat. Which of course it wasn't doing. Sean Hannity warned that we'd soon be paying fines for eating salt. Which isn't a problem for Hannity, who eats mostly boogers. When did the right wing become Joe Pesci over every little thing: "You sayin' I use too much salt? What am I, salty? fuck you, I use too much salt---here, take some salt right down your throat!"
Decades ago, when Lady Bird Johson suggested we plant wild flowers to beautify the highways, the reaction was "Sounds like a neat idea!" not "Don't tell me what I can plant, bitch!"
I'm not saying the right objects to Mrs. Obama's efforts because the Tea Baggers are stupid, or because they're hysterical, or because they hate black people. Though all of that is true. But what does it say about America that even a first lady suggestion has to be controversial---especially when she purposefully picked something no one could disagree with: Maybe we should send our kids outside to play. You know who else liked to send people places? Hitler. Rush Limbaugh makes a crack about this every week. Because who better to get your health advice from than a drug addicted fat man? Rush, I have proof that no one in the government is forcing you to eat right and exercise: you.
