Michelle Malkin
In June 2005, a few months after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Obama hustled a seat on the corporate Board of Directors of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. Despite zero experience, the food-processing company put her on its audit and nominating and corporate governance committees. For her on-the-job training and the privilege of putting her name and face on their literature, the company forked over $45,000 in 2005 and $51,200 in 2006 to Mrs. Obama - as well as 7,500 TreeHouse stock options worth more than $72,000 for each year.
The chairman of the TreeHouse Foods board, Sam K. Reed, was a top executive at Kellogg's and Keebler Foods, home of that great menace to children, the Keebler Elf. Before that, he headed up Mother's Cake and Cookie Company. The conglomerate sells cheese sauces, Cremora non-dairy creamer, instant soup, puddings and powdered soft drink mixes. Hardly the stuff of Mrs. Obama's new vision of nutritional paradise. TreeHouse is also a leading supplier of pickles used in the burgers of evil fast food chain McDonald's - exactly the kind of corporate restaurants Mrs. Obama is now targeting in her war on urban "food deserts."
The corporation-bashing Mrs. Obama would have continued raking in her TreeHouse cash if it hadn't been for her husband's pesky pledge to pander to Big Labor and swear off Wal-Mart. The retail giant, you see, happened to be TreeHouse's biggest customer. And Wal-Mart is to Big Labor as sunshine is to Dracula.
In May 2007, Obama told AFL-CIO workers in Trenton, N.J., that Wal-Mart was dead to him. "I won't shop there," he pledged, with an eye toward embarrassing then-chief rival Hillary Clinton, who had served on Wal-Mart's board from 1986-1992. The AFL-CIO has waged relentless attacks on Wal-Mart, dubbing it the "Poster Store for Greed." That, by extension, would make Mrs. Obama - all-too-happy recipient of a Wal-Mart dependent compensation package worth more than $100,000 in 2008, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records - a Poster Child for Ancillary Avarice.
Candidate Obama shrugged off his wife's conflict of interest. "Michelle and I have to live in the world and pay taxes and pay for our kids and save for retirement," Obama explained to Crain's Chicago Business magazine before his White House bid. Political expediency, alas, required that the candidate's wife step down when the issue reared its head after Obama's Wal-Mart bashing during the presidential campaign cycle. True to form, Mrs. Obama turned the decision into an ostentatious display of self-sacrifice:
"As my campaign commitments continue to ramp up, it is becoming more difficult for me to provide the type of focus I would like on my professional responsibilities," said Chicago's Joan of Arc in a resignation statement eight days after her husband declared his boycott of the stores stocked with food items processed and distributed by her TreeHouse colleagues. "My priorities, particularly at this important time, are ensuring that our young daughters feel a sense of comfort and normalcy in this process, and that I can support my husband in his presidential campaign to bring much needed change to this country."
She saw no conflict then. And she sees no conflict now in wielding her East Wing clout to restrict the advertising free speech of the food industry that lined her pocketbook with big, fat paychecks. The Obama White House is on an insatiable control binge. No private space has been left behind - not your grocery aisles, not your children's TV shows, not even your refrigerator.
Give the first lady this: She has an uncanny knack for wrapping her self-interests in the mantle of self-sacrifice and public service. It's the Obama way.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
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It has been proven by our medical professionals that obesity is one of the leading causes of diabetes, early heart disease, untimely strokes, bone and joint problems, high cholesterol and certain types of cancer.
Social scientists have determined that “food deserts”are not mirages. They exist in both rural and urban areas, they are districts with little or no access to the types of food needed to maintain a healthy diet. Often served by plenty of fast food restaurants. These are serious issues that need to be addressed and our first lady has taken a stand and should by supported by people with access in the media like yourself.
Our first lady Mrs. Obama is acutely aware of the effect obesity has on our country and that we can no longer afford to be heavy. Why else would we have 24hour gyms, gyms at work, Weight Watchers, and the Biggest Looser reality show, and a hundred and one diets?
The monetary and emotional cost of obesity to the American public pails in comparison to the corporate compensation you claim our first lady received from the various Boards she was invited to sit on. In Georgia, the sunshine Wal-Mart has shown on its' new employees is that their poor wages qualify them to receive food stamps to maintain a healthy diet.
So where do you stand? Making the oblique claim that your refrigerator has been violated yet you privately watch the obesity problems in our country get worse. The better choice would be to support our first lady Mrs. Obama and help raise awareness of an issue that affects us all?
C. Kenner Cowherd