Morning Joe: Michelle O’s Trump-Trashing Speech ‘Wasn’t to Help Hillary Clinton’

Morning Joe: Michelle O’s Trump-Trashing Speech ‘Wasn’t to Help Hillary Clinton’

If it’s up to the liberal media, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta is just going to have to take a back seat: there’s a budding new saint in town, and her name is Michelle Obama. Morning Joe began the canonization process today, beatifying the First Lady for her speech trashing Donald Trump over the stories about his personal behavior that have recently emerged.

All the ongoing glorification of Mrs. Obama on the Morning Joe set was leavened with some unintentional humor from Joe Scarborough, who said of the First Lady’s speech that “there was nothing calculated about it. This wasn’t to help Hillary Clinton.” Right. A speech delivered three weeks before the election. At a Hillary Clinton campaign event. At a podium festooned with a ‘Clinton-Kaine’ banner. But it was strictly “about daughters and mothers and women all across America.” Hand another hanky over, will ya?

The irony is that Morning Joe itself provided the best evidence debunking Scarborough’s claim that Michelle wasn’t trying to help Hillary. Immediately after the opening clip from the First Lady’s speech, the show ran a clip of President Obama saying: “if you want to hear the best case for Hillary Clinton . . . I would advise you to link up to Michelle’s speech earlier today in New Hampshire.”

There’s no question that the First Lady’s delivered her words well. But listening, one thing kept going through this Insurrectionist’s mind: Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton. The most grotesque moment of the segment came when Eugene Robinson reported that Bill Clinton had called it “the best speech of the campaign.” The irony was lost on Pulitzer Prize-winning Robinson of the Washington Post.  And if Scarborough was right, and it wasn’t a campaign speech, why did Bill Clinton call it the best speech of the “campaign?”

MICHELLE OBAMA: It reminds us of stories we’ve heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how back in their day, the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office and even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough. We thought all of that was ancient history, didn’t we? And so many have worked for so many years to end this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect, but here we are in 2016, and we’re hearing these exact same things every day on the campaign trail. We are drowning in it.

BARACK OBAMA: If you want to hear the best case for Hillary Clinton, you want to hear the very real stakes in this election, I would advise you to link up to Michelle’s speech from earlier today in New Hampshire.

. . .

JOE: Katty, I was trying to think about any historical precedent to having two of the greatest speakers, political speakers, in America being from the same family because that’s what we saw last night . . . Michelle Obama, what’s so remarkable about Michelle Obama, we hear time and time again she doesn’t like politics. And it is a good thing for the rest of the Democratic party that Michelle Obama does not like politics because it would be, like, okay, everybody move down to the end of the bench. The First Lady is going to be running. She is fantastic.

EUGENE ROBINSON: She — I think visibly was not that wild about this whole political thing at first. But obviously she has warmed to it. Obviously she’s learned to — that was I think Bill Clinton called it the best speech of the campaign. He might be right. It was a great speech.

KAY: She gave that great speech in Philly at the Democratic convention where she really made the case for Hillary Clinton in a way that none of Hillary Clinton’s other surrogates have managed to.

JOE: You know who she made the case for? She made the case for America.

ROBINSON: Yes.

. . .

KATTY KAY: this is a tricky subject. This whole issue of sexual harrassment and abuse. It’s hard. It’s hard to talk about. Hard for men to talk about. It’s hard for women to talk about. But she did it in a way that was articulate and thoughtful and emotional but without being over the top.

ROBINSON: That brought everybody along. She didn’t close any doors along the way. She kind of brought you with her.

KAY: And everyone would have listened to that and said that’s how I feel.

. . .

JOE: You could tell it was coming from her heart and that there was nothing calculated about it. This wasn’t to help Hillary Clinton. This wasn’t to help her husband’s legacy. This wasn’t to promote herself. This was about her daughters, and this was about my daughter. It was about your daughter. It was about daughters and mothers and women all across America.

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