First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the NAACP National Convention for its first plenary session, focusing her remarks on the problems of childhood obesity and her effort to address the problem through her Let's Move campaign. Prior to her speech Senator Claire McCaskill (D) and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D) addressed the audience with brief remarks.
First Lady Michelle Obama speaking at the NAACP National Convention in Kansas City.
Yeah, we know. The main press riser was 110 feet from the stage and we weren't lugging a 400 mm telephoto lens because they're really heavy and we can't afford one.
Senator Claire McCaskill (D).
Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D).
Photographers on the main press riser.
The much smaller cut riser to the right of the stage was so packed it looked like a raft with survivors of the Titanic, except in this case they were holding really expensive cameras.
We've been getting quite a bit of traffic from right wingnuttia over a reference at one of their sites (no, we're not going to give them the linky goodness and ensuing traffic).
During the campaign, on July 10, 2008, Michelle Obama came to Kansas City for a town hall on the campus of the University of Missouri - Kansas City. We covered the event:
Right wingnuttia is quite obsessed by this portion of the transcript, claiming that it's proof that President Obama is illegitimate and this is further proof to be added to the convoluted birther pantheon of conspiracies:
...He understands them because he was raised by strong women. He is the product of two great women in his life. His mother and his grandmother. [applause] Barack saw his mother, who was very young and very single when she had him, and he saw her work hard to complete her education and try to raise he and his sister...
I kid you not. These are the kinds of people who memorize and obsess over every detail of The Brady Bunch as if the complete episodes were Shakespeare's plays. They just haven't figured out that there is a difference.
The Faux News Channel will pick this up in, three, two, one... And that's the problem with political discourse in this country.
At yesterday's campaign rally I was ensconced in the media/press pen between the majority of the crowd and the stage. I ended up spending most of my time turning back away from the stage to photograph the faces in the crowd.
Michelle Obama spoke at an outdoor rally at 18th and Vine in Kansas City. Media estimates of the crowd ranged from 3000 on up. The other presidential campaign event in our area today drew a much smaller crowd.
View of the stage and the museums at 18th and Vine.from near the press risers.
Blue Girl and I have arrived and received our media credentials. We'll have to step out of the area soon and then go through security. Live blogging may be touch and go for us since we won't have workspace at the actual rally venue.
I'm not all that cynical usually, but I found myself getting there yesterday. Sitting there, watching the speakers on TV one after another praise Barack Obama the same way, I started getting cranky. It didn't help that Wolf Blitzer was droning on and on in between and sometimes during the speeches, a situation I remedied by switching it to C-SPAN, which doesn't have commentators at all. Good thing, too, because as I understand it, Claire McCaskill's speech wasn't televised on CNN any other network.
Watching all those speeches back to back reminded me that public officials aren't necessarily very good public speakers. In fact, some of the non-electeds who had been given a speaking slot were just as good as those who had spent years in office.
Case in point: Michelle Obama. As she spoke, especially introduced by her mom in a short film presented before the speech, my cynicism melted away. It was the kind of speech that hits you in the gut, telling you her story, the kind of story we all want for ourselves and for our own kids. A woman that came through hard work from a struggling family to a successful law career and raise a family of her own, a picture passionately presented by Michelle. How could you not tear up a little when hearing about her father, since deceased, struggling to make it every day to work at a city water plant while fighting multiple sclerosis?
"A Discussion with Missouri Women and Michelle Obama".
We attempted to live blog the event - Michelle Obama in Kansas City - the audience gathers, but we were like a bad clown act trying to juggle one too many things, sometimes it just ain't pretty. The photos turned out quite a bit better.
The television trucks started showing up after 7:00 a.m.
A local television reporter does a morning news "stand up" before the public is let into the auditorium.
The audience starts filling the auditorium a little before 9:00 a.m.
Blue Girl and I are here in the media pen waiting for Michelle Obama to speak at Pierson Auditorium on the campus of the University of Missouri - Kansas City.
The event is titled: "A Discussion with Missouri Women and Michelle Obama".
If the WiFi holds up we'll try to do some live blogging.
