Jonathan M. Lee

I have noticed something lately that I do not care for. More and more people on the political right have taken to calling Michelle Obama a man. Sometimes it is said as a joke. Sometimes it is said with the smug satisfaction of someone who believes he has discovered a clever insult. Sometimes it is posted as if it were a badge of tribal loyalty. I find it classless . That may not be the fashionable thing to say in certain circles, but it is the honest thing to say. There are many fair criticisms a person may make of the Obamas. They were public figures at the highest level of American life. Their politics, policies, speeches, influence, and their place in American culture are all proper subjects for disagreement. A citizen has every right to criticize those things plainly. But there is a difference between criticism and degradation. A serious man should know the difference. I think often of John McCain during the 2008 campaign, when a woman at one of his town halls tried to turn Bar...