In this corner standing approximately 5’11’’ is the first lady of the United States Michelle Obama.  In this corner standing approximately 5’5’’ is the ex-governor of Alaska Sarah Louise Heath Palin.  Mrs. Obama has the height and reach advantage but what ex-governor Palin lacks there she may make up for in persistence.  (Who can forget how long she clung onto the “Pals around with terrorist” line?)  In either case this fight, if we ever have it, promises to be a lulu.  Your referee this evening is the main stream media.  Your ring announcer – yours truly.  In case you haven’t been noticing, someone is spoiling for a fight these days between the First Lady and ex-Governor Palin and I don’t think it’s either women. 

On the Larry King Live show which aired on February 9th, King tried unsuccessfully to get his guest, Michelle Obama to throw a jab at Palin.  King first started out subtly by asking what Mrs. Obama’s “read” on Palin was.  Subtle, subtle.  Mrs. Obama answered that she didn’t know Palin and that she tried not to form opinions about people she had not met or interacted with.  Good Mrs. Obama.  You didn’t fall for that one.  King went on to ask the First Lady if it “irked her” when Palin criticized the President.  Not so subtle King.  Again, Mrs. Obama didn’t go for the bait. 

Michelle Obama:  “You know, democracy is about critique and the President is not immune to criticism.”

King made numerous attempts to get the sparks flying between the two, even going as far as using obsequious praise to get the First Lady to throw a shot at Palin.  Nothing worked.  No juicy, sound bite was obtained from this interview and it is that fact that has become the story.  Why won’t Michelle Obama, who many pollster say out polls her husband in popularity on a consistent basis, give us what we want – a knockdown, drag out donnybrook with the loose-lipped Sarah Palin?

That is also what columnist Lynn Sweet in a February 11 article posted on Politics Daily entitled “Michelle Obama on Sarah Palin” wonders as well.  Sweet in her article is very critical of the First Lady for not providing the fodder King and the rest of the media want calling Obama’s answers “pat” and a “dodge.” – Sweet goes on to make the point in her article that people have opinions about public figures they have not met all the time.  Sweet and King both know that Michelle Obama could have answered in only one of four ways and that they would have leaped at either answer. 

•    She could have refused to comment at all in which case she would have been criticized for being evasive or even hostile.  (Remember when how this moniker was being attached to Mrs. Obama during the campaign?)
•    She could have said nothing but very positive statements about Palin in which case the media would have deemed Mrs. Obama to be insincere or even a liar.
•    She could have told her how she really must feel and been called catty. 
•    She could have answered in the general way she did for which she is now being criticized of being dodgy.

Now, I’m not saying that King and Sweet don’t have the right to ask such questions of the First Lady or anyone else they interview or write about but the mainstream media doesn’t seem to feel it has the time to wait and let stories develop organically.  They seem to be asking themselves, “can’t we grow these controversies ourselves and then pretend to only be reporting on them?”  They hungrily anticipate what such a cat-fight would do for their ratings and in doing so they often miss stories of greater substance.  The mainstream media seems to be all about distraction these days and not about substance.  It’s seems to want to deafen us with the loud reverberations they make inside the vast echo chamber so that we cannot hear issues of any substance. 

The mainstream media is not content with the one juicy tidbit they got from Mrs. Obama when, during the presidential campaign of 08’, she said “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”  The MSM jumped all over the first fourteen words of that statement and now it is genuinely indignant that Mrs. Obama won’t give it another nugget. 

Ms. Sweet and Mr. King can’t lure Michelle Obama into saying something nasty and controversial about Sarah Palin, so the fact that she won’t provide the fuel for a duel becomes the story.  (I can’t help but wonder what if they had been so probing, so persistent in their questions leading up to the war in Iraq.)  They act as if the First Lady was doing something sneaky by not giving them some juicy morsel to nibble on.  Michelle Obama is not obligated to give the media or anyone else her opinion unless and until she feels like it.  I mean can’t they just guess how she must feel about the empty vessel that is Sarah Palin and just leave it at that?  So far, to her credit, the First Lady has not been as loose lipped as the media has hoped.  And as for Palin?