Brenda Blagg: Michelle's powerful speech

First Lady decries Trump’s attitudes about women

Michelle Obama gave voice last week to disgust resulting from this year's ever-degenerating presidential election campaign.

Yes, she was on the campaign trail as a surrogate for Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose candidacy both she and President Barack Obama have enthusiastically endorsed.

That fact may discount what she said to some. But it shouldn't.

Michelle Obama's words to a Manchester, N.H., audience transcended the election itself.

"This isn't about politics. It's about basic human decency. It's about right and wrong," she said.

She spoke to an open wound in American politics, one salted lately by Republican Donald Trump.

Michelle Obama didn't mention Trump's name but called attention to the behavior identified in a 2005 video that has dominated the presidential race ever since the video's release more than a week ago.

That was, of course, the Access Hollywood recording with then-host Billy Bush when Trump crudely talked of women letting him "do anything" to them, including grabbing their genitalia.

Ignore for now the women who have since come forward to accuse Trump of past behavior to match what he claimed in the video.

The recording itself was unmistakably of Trump, volunteering a sexist, demeaning characterization of women he encountered.

After the video's release, after it had become a disgusting if necessary part of a presidential debate, Michelle Obama explained how the discourse had affected her.

"I have to tell you that I can't stop thinking about this. It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn't have predicted," she said. "So while I'd love nothing more than to pretend like this isn't happening, and to come out here and to do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to just move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream."

She described the incredulous truth that a candidate for president of the United States had actually bragged about sexually assaulting women.

"This was not just a 'lewd conversation.' This wasn't just locker-room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior, and actually bragging about kissing and groping women, using language so obscene that many of us were worried about our children hearing it when we turn on the TV."

Nor, she said, were the candidate's remarks an isolated incident.

"It's one of countless examples of how he had treated women his whole life."

What she was feeling, others could relate to, she said, particularly the women.

"The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman.

"It is cruel. It's frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. ...

"So many have worked for so many years to end this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect, but here we are, in 2016, and we're hearing these exact same things every day on the campaign trail. We are drowning in it."

She did not speak just to women, however.

"To dismiss this as everyday locker-room talk," she said, "is an insult to decent men everywhere."

She spoke of caring men who are just as concerned as many women are about what's going on.

"They are loving fathers who are sickened by the thought of their daughters being exposed to this kind of vicious language about women. They are husbands and brothers and sons who don't tolerate women being treated and demeaned and disrespected. And like us, these men are worried about the impact this election is having on our boys who are looking for role models of what it means to be a man."

It was, word for word, a powerful speech with a message that goes well beyond politics.

Still, the politics can't be ignored.

This was hardly the first strike against Trump, but it is the one that prompted a significant number of prominent backers to withdraw their endorsements of him.

Trump continues to deny his accusers' claims, even as they grow in number. He and others are also trying to make former President Bill Clinton's sexual transgressions a bigger part of this election campaign.

But most of the fallout from the week that was -- the one highlighted by Michelle Obama's emotional speech that put it all in perspective -- is on Trump.

Commentary on 10/16/2016

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