Where's the link, and what does this:

"Question why an interview of Obamas in Le Monde in 1996?"

even mean?

Le Monde

Il est en français. Les commentaires de Michelle et Barack sont compatibles avec ce qu'ils ont dit au cours de la dernière année. Barack dit:

Ma priorité est de ramener les valeurs publiques ou collectives au centre du débat, car nous formons tous une grande famille, au-delà des clivages de races ou de classes sociales, et nous avons des obligations et des responsabilités les uns envers les autres.

[My goal is to bring together public opinion and societal collective values to a place at the center of the debate, because we are all one big family, beyond the divisions of race or social class, and we have common obligations and responsibilities towards each other.]

It was an interview for a book on American marriages. The Obamas didn't make it through the editing process; somewhere an editorial board is kicking themselves. Someone here in another thread said they found the consistency of their positions to be scary. For me it is quite the opposite; I find it reassuring that they had settled on how they see themselves and what they want to accomplish in life, and have stayed on their chosen path. That the stories they tell, about their families and their past, were the same then as now should not be shocking; this is the narrative of their lives, and it does not appear to be some newly minted PR construct. There are no surprises, and they come across as an entirely earnest and charming young couple.

he was the first African-American to be president of the Harvard Law Review. You know how the French are about all that intellectual type shit.

someone named Marina Cook interviewed the Obamas for a book on American couples. Le Monde had the interview translated into French and then published it.

What I'd like to know is where Le Monde got the transcript.

I'd love to see the original because I'm wondering if anything was lost in translation. Speaking about herself and her brother, here's what Michelle says about their upbringing:

"... nous avons fréquenté des établissements privés, ici à Chicago, et après le lycée j'ai étudié dans des universités de la Côte est.."

Did she tell the interviewer that she and her brother went to private schools or did the translator make a mistake?

notes that the Obamas are BCBG...bon chic bon genre...the "right sort of people." You know...villagers.

And a comment on Kos gushes about how well Obama speaks French. (!)

Looks like a fairly good piece of fluff, to me, as fluff comes, from what little I can translate, and the rest by way of a crappy, free online translator. lol

at ABC Tapper blog

is giving us English translated into French and then back into English. This can result in major distortions of what the Obamas really said.

Now if someone can find a transcript of the original English interview...

I'd just like to state that my interest in this is limited, here, and goes beyond nothing but an interest in the fluffiness of it as opposed to trying to 'dig something up' as some may be doing with this. That said, at least from reading the Tapper translation, I see that Obama's always been his pretentious self. Every response from him is like sitting through a painfully bad creative writing class paper when even asked the most simple of questions:

"Sometimes, when we’re lying together," he says, "I look at her and I feel dizzy with the realization that here is another distinct person from me, who has memories, origins, thoughts, feelings that are different from my own. That tension between familiarity and mystery meshes something strong between us. Even if one builds a life together based on trust, attentiveness and mutual support, I think that’s it’s important that a partner continues to surprise."

If this is just the result of translation, then I take it back, but I can see him saying this, and this:

Describing Michelle as "alluring" and with "a strong personality," the future President says, "if you look deep into her eyes, there’s a certain vulnerability. In any case, I see it even if most don’t realize it: she goes through life tall, beautiful, confident, very able…There’s a part of her that is fragile, young, sometimes scared, and I think these are contradictions that attracted me to her. And she makes me very happy. She is very familiar to me and so I can be myself around her, she knows me well, I completely trust her, but at the same time in certain respects she remains a mystery to me."

Good one, Romeo. lol It's like madhouse meets art house.

On the other hand, I really enjoy Michelle, to be honest.

... the "meteoric rise" heading ("we don't want nobody nobody sent"). OTOH, Harvard Law Review, charismatic figure, charming wife... The interview was done by Marina Cook when she was working on her book Couples in America, and it looks like she sold outtakes from the book to Le Monde.

It's not like the editors of Le Monde commissioned to interview. So, this is one of those things, I think, that in retrospect might seem important, but isn't. Though the content of the interview is interesting, the fact of it is not.

Obama says:

[OBAMA] My priority is to bring back public or collective values to the core of the debate, because we all belong to a big family, beyond racial and social differences, and we have obligations and responsibilities to others

Discuss.

My priority is to bring back public or collective values to the core of the debate, because we all belong to a big family, beyond racial and social differences, and we have obligations and responsibilities to others

Dude, i fuckin' grew up in the Ozarks. SHOW ME.

So far, with the exception of HRC at State, there's been damn little worth lookin' at -- but there is Joe Biden, and I like him. Dunno why or how but I have a feeling he's an "elder elf" of a sort, in this. (Remember Eddie Albert in the "Witch Mountain" movies Disney did?) Wily. Canny. And in a quiet competent not-flashy way (let's say the grin and the silver hair make the difference in the perception of Biden as more approachable than Al Gore, for the sake of argument) I think he's going to be the anti-Cheney. Which, IMNVHO, will be good for the nation.