First Lady Michelle Obama made an amazing speech Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention. Overwhelmingly, the reaction to her speech has been positive. She was relatable and moving. A quick search on Twitter shows that very few people had anything negative to say about the speech.

The First Lady lit Twitter on fire. She averaged 28,000 tweets a minute, double the tweets of Mitt Romney’s speech and almost five times the number that Ann Romney received.

Most, but of course, not all responses were positive. The right, unable to say anything positive about the Obamas or the Democratic party, were quite willing to call Ms. Obama anything from a liar to worse.

Not surprisingly, Breitbart.com had perhaps the most scathing review:

First Lady Michelle Obama’s pitch to voters last night relied on the premise that she and her husband understand what it is to struggle to make ends meet. She spoke movingly about their early years–about how a young Barack Obama drove a car that was “rusted out” and found his furniture “in a dumpster,” how they both came from families that had to “scrape by.” Her fairy tale–however well-delivered–was one great, big, colorful lie.

Both Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama began their adult lives with a leg up on the rest of America. They attended elite schools: Michelle went to Whitney Young, the public magnet school for Chicago’s upper class, while Barack attended Punahou, the private prep school for the top stratum of Hawaiian society. They were accepted to Ivy League schools despite undistinguished credentials, and both attended Harvard Law School.

So, Michelle went to a Magnet School, a public school and Barack went to a private school. That hardly means that their families didn’t sacrifice for their children’s educations. Here is a picture of Michelle’s modest Chicago childhood home:

NPR had issues with some of the statements made during Tuesday night’s speeches, but they found no factual errors at all with Michelle Obama’s.

The Daily Caller was a bit more general in their critique of the Obama administration in general.

The first lady’s speech hit numerous cultural notes that may bolster the president’s support among late-deciding, conflict-averse, non-ideological voters, and only provided hard-to-recognize, or “dog-whistle,” support for many of Obama’s most controversial policies.

Many of the coveted voters are white working-class voters in the Midwest’s battleground states of Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin, who have seen little benefits from Obama’s economic and social policies.

Pretty basic stuff there and a matter of opinion for many. Many families are still hurting financially, but of course, without Republican obstructionism, we’d probably have a very different economic picture across the country.

Particularly interesting was their use of the term, “dog whistle,” a term typically used to describe coded racism. Terms like “real Americans,” “foreign” and “boy” are racist dog whistles, terms that are intended to be understood by racists, but with enough cover for plausible deniability. By using the term, the Daily Caller is simply playing a game of projection.

No right-wing response would be complete without the talking point maker, Rush Limbaugh and frankly, it seems even he had a hard time insulting Michelle Obama, but he did manage to parrot Breitbart.com, only with no specifics.

RUSH: People asked me in the e-mail, I checked it during the top of the hour.  “Why didn’t you talk about Michelle’s speech?”  Folks, I’ll be glad to talk about it.  But I don’t think she believed a word of it.  Masterfully given speech.  Look, as a performer and judging it as a performance, it was exceptional.  It was, as a performance, Michelle Obama’s speech was perfection.  Looked at through the prism of what she intended it to accomplish.  It was flawlessly executed.  It could not have been better in terms of performance.  But it was all lies.  She didn’t believe any of it.  She didn’t believe anything that she said in that speech.

Of course, no Rush diatribe is complete without a jab at ‘feminazis,’

RUSH: Folks, I don’t know about you. Let me share something with you. Michelle Obama last night went on and on about how she loves her husband. She loves him more now than ever. She loves him more now than yesterday than when she met him and four years ago and all that. I wonder: How did that play with the feminazis? That’s not in the playbook. Loving your husband is not in the playbook. (interruption) Well, it’s not. (interruption) Look, you can get mad at me all you want but it was a big disconnect. That’s just going to make people envious and jealous, and a lot of people are not going to believe that.

It goes without saying that Republicans would resent one of the most powerful speeches ever delivered at a political convention. It even goes without saying that the right-wing spin would be to lie, but Rush Limbaugh’s very words are perhaps the reason that the Republican party isn’t resonating with women. His words are why the Republicans may be doomed to lose, despite outspending the President in this campaign season.

Follow me on my new Facebook page or on Twitter, @wendygittleson

Related posts: