What happened to the rest of the Quote?

In an August 17 New York Times article about how presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (IL) is “increasingly drawing sharp contrasts with his rivals” for the Democratic nomination, reporter Jeff Zeleny wrote: “Even Michelle Obama presented a contrast [during a campaign event] on Thursday as she introduced her husband in an open-air barn at the Cass County fairgrounds. She told a crowd of more than 200 people that family values and trust were important in the next presidential candidate. ‘Our view is that if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House,’ Mrs. Obama said.” Zeleny did not provide Michelle Obama’s full quote, nor did he explain to whom Michelle Obama was purportedly drawing a contrast. In the part of the quote The New York Times left out, Obama — as blogger Greg Sargent noted — immediately went on to discuss measures her family was taking to keep their children “grounded” while campaigning, indicating that her comments were not a reference to rival candidates but rather a statement about the efforts they were making to ensure that their children will continue to “come first.”

After stating, “Our view is that if you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House,” Michelle Obama continued: “[S]o we’ve adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first, so while he’s [Barack Obama] traveling around, I do day trips” in order to be “home before bedtime.” Atlantic associate editor Marc Ambinder wrote that one “recurring theme of her stump speech” is “the hard choices she and Sen. Obama have had to make about their work/family balance.”

An August 21 column by the Chicago Sun-Times’ Jennifer Hunter also selectively cited Michelle Obama’s remarks and suggested that she was referring to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) in her statement. Hunter wrote that Obama’s comment “could be interpreted as a swipe at the Clintons.” But, according to Sargent, “The Obama campaign says this wasn’t an attack on Hillary at all.” Sargent stated that Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton sent him a statement saying: “The only family Mrs. Obama was referring to was the Obama family.” Ambinder further noted that in highlighting Hunter’s column, “Matt Drudge has other designs, and you can bet that the cable news networks will follow.” The Drudge Report headline on the afternoon of August 21 was “Obama’s Wife Slams Hillary?”

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