Obama to Tennessee GOP: Lay Off My Wife
Saturday: Michelle Obama campaigned with her husband Barack Obama in Oregon, stopping for ice cream at Prince Puckler's ice cream shop in Eugene. (AP Photo)
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama, crying foul over a video made by the Tennessee Republican Party last week, said Monday that his critics should “lay off my wife.”
In the four-minute video produced by the state GOP and now available on YouTube, Michelle Obama is shown delivering a speech in February during which she said: “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” The ad then features Nashville voters saying why they are proud of their country.
Asked about the video Monday, Obama told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that it is “low class.” The front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination warned that the Tennessee GOP “should be careful” and said he finds it “unacceptable” for them to use his wife in a video.
“The GOP, should I be the nominee, I think can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record,” Obama said, with his wife sitting next to him. “If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family….
“Whoever is in charge of the Tennessee GOP needs to think long and hard about the kind of campaign they want to run, and I think that’s true for everybody, Democrat or Republican….
“But I also think these folks should lay off my wife,” he added.
In a news release that included a link to the video, Tennessee’s GOP said “the Tennessee Republican Party has always been proud of America.” It urged radio stations to play “patriotic music” during Michelle Obama’s visit to Nashville last Thursday.
Tennessee GOP Communications Director Bill Hobbs told FOXNews.com that the party was “kicking around some ideas what could we do to make a little noise” in advance of Michelle Obama’s fund-raising trip to the city. Hobbs said the idea was conceived and executed in a matter of hours, was produced in-house with “a Sony Handycam and a laptop,” and not a dollar was spent buying ad time for the video to air.
Hobbes said the video doesn’t criticize Michelle Obama at all, but merely raises an issue that had already been scrutinized by the public.
“We contrasted something she said in a public campaign speech at a public event that was covered by the news media,” Hobbs said. “It’s not like we’re the first people to raise this issue. We just made a light-hearted video. … Senator Obama has a pattern of requesting certain things that are uncomfortable to him as off-limits … She is on the campaign trail, so I don’t think she is off-limits. He sends her out to do campaign speeches and fund-raisers, and then says we can’t criticize the things she says. I think that’s ridiculous.”
Michelle Obama first made the remark in February and repeated it a couple times at campaign events before later saying she meant she was proud of how Americans were engaging in the political process and that she had always been proud of her country.
Obama said his wife “loves this country. For them to try to distort or to play snippets of her remarks in ways that are unflattering to her is, I think, just low class. I think that most of the American people would think that as well.”
Tennessee’s Republican Party was roundly criticized in March, including by John McCain, for issuing a news release that used Obama’s middle name — Hussein — and showed a photo of him wearing what it said was “Muslim attire.”
The release ultimately was removed from the party’s Web site at the urging of the state’s two Republican senators and Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan, who said he “rejects these kinds of campaign tactics.”
Even as Obama declared his wife off-limits, the Democratic National Committee issued a release calling for Cindy McCain to release her tax returns. The wife of the presumptive GOP nominee and a beer distribution company heiress has filed her taxes separately from her husband for the entirety of their marriage.
Click here to see the Tennessee Republican Party ad entitled “Proud.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
She tossed herself into the ring by making public appearances and making speeches. Her words make her fair game.
Obama asks us to judge him by his “track record”. What track record?
McCain in 2008.
IF not Hillary, I will vote MCCAIN as will the rest of my family.
Obama’s wife will NEVER be accepted by the voters as our next First Lady! She has a very flawed view of America and those not of her race…
It is just silly in 2008 that we will not give true thought to our present economic vitality global status. It is true that George Bush has damaged our country and he has placed our future in the hands of foreign governments. Senator Obama can’t do any worse than our present President.
McCain would not make a bad president compared to the current one. Just to keep Obama and his crazy wife, and the racist Wright out of the White House, I will vote for McCain!
Well…….if you place yourself in the publics eyes…..you must be ready for the criticism. Everyone makes mistakes, but you too must accept your mistakes, not try to “bully” others from their right to speech(opinion)! If Obama & his wife can’t take the heat now…..then they need to get out of the kitchen before it is too late for our beautiful, home of the brave and free United States of America!
MAJ - somewhat disengenious comment. The Dems control Congress, amnd Congress has an even lower approval rating than the President, so what does that say about Dems??? Also, whetre’s all the “:good stuph” Obama is promising now that he didn’t present in terms as Senator?? Sounds like hogwash to me.
He is low class to countenance calls for Cindy McCain’s tax return.