III: Foundation-Funded Racism: Jeremiah Wright and Michelle 119Even the house became a source of controversy when it emerged that the wife of a Chicago
slum landlord, Tony Rezko, helped them buy land to enlarge its grounds.
More contentious still was Michelle’s appointment as the £150,000-a-year vice-president of
external affairs at the University of Chicago hospital in 2005.
It came only two months after Barack was sworn in as a U.S. senator, and was attacked by
critics as a blatant attempt by the hospital’s hierarchy to curry favour with her husband, in an
era when some politicians want to rein in the vast profits of America’s medical system.
They questioned why the wife of a committed Democrat would work for a hospital that has
been accused of ruthless greed.
Michelle’s image was further tarnished in May 2006, when it was revealed that the centre -
despite earning some £50 million a year – had refused to treat a man who could not afford to
pay his bill. He died.
All of which has led some political veterans to accuse Michelle of the very lack of compassion
and moral scruples that her husband has lambasted in his Republican rivals for the White
House. (Sharon Churcher, “Mrs O.: The truth about Michelle Obama’s ‘working class’
credentials, London Daily Mail, February 23, 2008)
Michelle is thus a gatekeeper against the black community, and her activity has already claimed
victims.^24
Some sources reached by Sharon Churcher have been able to draw the necessary conclusions
about Michelle Obama’s substandard moral and political qualities. Unlike Hillary Clinton, they
point out, neither Obama has endorsed far-reaching healthcare reforms.
Michelle also is under attack for joining the board of a food company where she allegedly took
part in a 2005 decision to close a pickle and relish plant in La Junta, Colorado, putting 150 mostly
Hispanic labourers out of work. The small town was devastated. “It totally amazed me when they
closed it,” said La Junta mayor Don Rizzuto, who had believed that Michelle and her husband were
“the champions of the little guy.”
In their most recently publicised tax returns, for 2005, the Obamas earned £800,000. This
included royalties from the senator’s autobiography Dreams from My Father, and his £82,600
Senate salary. Under a three-book deal which he subsequently signed, he stands to earn at least £1
million.
To Joe Novak, this only goes to prove that Michelle is distorting reality when she attempts to
depict herself as a champion of the masses. “For the past year (she and Barack) have jetted around
the country with Oprah Winfrey and Robert De Niro, enjoying penthouse parties and living the high
life,” he said.
Perhaps, when she contrasts her current red-carpet lifestyle with the unassuming world of South
Euclid Avenue, she genuinely may think that her childhood was impoverished. And the one thing
that is certain about the incredible Mrs O. is that she never intends to have to live that way again.’
(Sharon Churcher, “Mrs O.: The truth about Michelle Obama’s ‘working class’ credentials, London
Daily Mail, February 23, 2008)
Barack Obama has the mental structures of a fatherless boy, and he knows it. “The truth is that
none of the men in my life were that successful or that stable,” [Michelle] Obama told me. “They
made an awful lot of mistakes.” (Purdum, Vanity Fair, March 2008) Later, when it came time to
marry Michelle, he hesitated; Barack had a more bohemian attitude toward romance. “We would