A truly great speech transcends its time and place, and that is what a great speech given by First Lady Michelle Obama did last week in New Hampshire. It transcended its time, its place and it even transcended this nasty campaign season.
In her speech, Obama blasted comments made by Republican presidential contender Donald Trump, the obscene remarks aimed at women he made on a bus in a Hollywood parking lot in 2005. Her speech was also a rousing endorsement of Democrat Hillary Clinton and a rallying cry for every American to cast a vote.
However, beyond Obama’s sharp critique of Trump, beyond the Clinton endorsement, Obama’s riveting speech will likely stand on its own merits long after the Obamas are out of the White House and long after Trump is just a sour memory.
Obama, the mother of two intelligent daughters, was speaking from deep within her heart when she delivered her eloquent, passionate lesson about the despicable disrespect and violence against women in this nation, in this world.
Men degrading women is not mere “locker-room talk,” as Trump has argued, Obama said, her voice quivering with a mixture of anger and conviction. Obscene, demeaning remarks against women are not “politics as usual,” and it is not “normal,” she added.
“This is disgraceful; it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to . . . None of us deserves this kind of abuse . . . The truth is, it hurts. It hurts.”
The children are listening, she reminded us.
“This is about basic human decency,” she told the audience members, who responded with rapturous applause. “We cannot expose our children to this any longer. Now is the time for all of us to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough!’ ”
Trump’s dismissal of his vile remarks against women as “locker-room talk” is an insult to the millions of “husbands, brothers, sons” who don’t demean women, Obama said.
We are often told as children this dumb adage: “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” But words can break hearts, especially little hearts.
As Obama put it in her speech: “The truth is, it hurts. It hurts.”
Leaders must lead by setting high standards, Obama emphasized. Degrading remarks against women should never be dismissed as minor, she said, because “ . . . then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly OK. We are validating it. We are endorsing it. We’re telling our sons it’s OK to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country. Is that what we want for our children?”
There are so many memorable lines in Obama’s speech that they are likely at some time, some place, to be engraved on stone monuments.
Abraham Lincoln’s unforgettable Gettysburg Address was a tribute to the soldiers who died at the Gettysburg battlefield, but it was also more than that, much more. It was a profound call for national solidarity, for a common purpose, for the healing of wounds and for a striving for human freedom and equality.
In her great speech, Obama sounded those same notes: dignity, solidarity, freedom and equality for boys and girls, for men and women.
It is the kind of speech that will inspire for a long time. Dare we hope this extraordinary woman, Michelle Obama, will run for president in 2020?
