[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4687-4688]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              TWO MICHELLES, TWO AMERICAS & SHAME V. PRIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, an article came across my desk earlier 
today which I believe needs and deserves the attention of this House. 
It is titled, ``2 Michelles, 2 Americas & Shame v. Pride.'' It was 
written by Michelle Malkin.
  She writes: ``Like Michelle Obama, I am a 'woman of color.' Like 
Michelle Obama, I am a working mother of two

[[Page 4688]]

young children. Like Michelle Obama, I am member of the 13th generation 
of Americans born since the founding of our great Nation.
  ``Unlike Michelle Obama, I can't keep track of the numbers of times I 
have been proud--really proud--of my country since I was born and 
privileged to live in it. At a recent speech in Milwaukee, Mrs. Obama 
remarked, `For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud 
of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I 
think people are hungry for change'.
  ``Mrs. Obama's statement was met with warm applause from those who 
also are apparently devoid of pride in their country during their adult 
lifetimes. Or maybe it was a Pavlovian response to the word `change'. 
What a sad, empty, narcissistic, ungrateful, unthinking lot.
  ``I am just 7 years younger than Ms. Obama. We have grown up and 
lived in the same era. And yet, her self-absorbed attitude is 
completely foreign to me. What planet is she living on? Since when was 
now the only time the American people have ever been `hungry for 
change'?
  ``We were both adults when the Berlin Wall fell. That was an earth-
shattering change. We lived through two decades of peaceful, if 
contentious, election cycles under the rule of law, which have brought 
about change and upheaval, both good and bad. We were adults through 
several launches of the space shuttle, in case you were snoozing. And 
as adults, we've witnessed and benefited from dizzyingly rapid advances 
in technology, communications, science, and medicine pioneered by 
American entrepreneurs who yearned to change the world and succeeded.
  You want `change'? Go ask the patients whose lives have been improved 
and extended by American pharmaceutical companies that have flourished 
under the best economic system in the world.
  ``If American ingenuity, a robust constitutional republic, and the 
fall of communism don't do it for you, then how about American heroism 
and sacrifice? How about every Memorial Day, every Veterans Day, every 
Independence Day, every medal of honor ceremony? Has she never attended 
a ``welcome home ceremony'' for the troops? For me, there is a thrill 
of the Blue Angels roaring over the cloudless skies, and there is the 
somber awe felt amid the hallowed waters that surround the sunken USS 
Arizona and Pearl Harbor Memorial.

                              {time}  1700

  Every naturalization ceremony I've attended where hundreds of new 
Americans raise their hands to swear an oath of allegiance to this land 
of liberty has been a moment of pride for me, so has the awesome 
display of American compassion at home and around the world when 
millions of Americans rallied to help victims of the 2004 tsunami on 
Southeast Asia, including members of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier 
Strike Group that sped from Hong Kong to assist the survivors. My heart 
filled with pride. It did again when the citizens of Houston opened 
their arms to Hurricane Katrina victims and folks across the country 
rushed to their churches and offices of the Salvation Army and Red 
Cross to volunteer.
  How about American resilience? Does it not make you proud? Only a 
heart of stone could be unmoved by the strength, the valor and 
determination displayed by New York, Washington, DC and Shanksville, 
Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.
  I believe it was Michael Kinsley who quipped that a gaffe is when a 
politician tells the truth. In this case, it's what happens when an 
elite Democrat politician's wife says what a significant portion of her 
party's base really believe to be truth: America is more a source of 
shame than pride.
  Michelle Obama has achieved enormous professional success, political 
influence and personal acclaim in America. Ivy League educated, she's 
been lauded by Essence magazine as one of the 25 Most Inspiring Women, 
by Vanity Fair as one of the ten World's Best-Dressed Women, and named 
one of `The Harvard 100' most influential alumni. She has an amazingly 
blessed life, but you wouldn't know it from her campaign rhetoric or 
her griping about her and her husband's student loans.
  For years we've heard liberals get offended by any challenge to their 
patriotism. And so they are again aggrieved and rising to explain away 
Ms. Obama's remarks. Lady Michelle and her defenders protest too much.
  Madam Speaker, I am proud of America for many reasons, not the least 
of which is because it helped shape the character of Michelle Malkin.

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