First Lady Michelle Obama is wrapping up her tour of China sans the American press. Despite American media being shut out from the visit, Mrs. Obama has received glowing coverage of her trip, most recently from The Washington Post’s Krissah Thompson.
Writing on Tuesday’s March 25, Thompson puffed up “History and jump-rope as first lady visits Xi’an” before providing a glowing description of Mrs. Obama’s “five-hour sightseeing tour, giving her and her family a view of China’s long history- plus a little jump-roping on the side.”
The piece then spent the next 12 paragraphs glorifying the Obama’s sightseeing tour across China:
Led through the archeological site by museum director Cao Wei, Obama journeyed down into several pits, the largest of which contains 6,000 warriors arranged along brick-paved corridors in battle formation.
Cao led Obama, her daughters and her mother onto a restoration platform in the first pit, where archeologists piece together fragments of the sculptures like jigsaw puzzles. The first lady and her family lingered in the pit, asking questions and listening as Cao explained through an interpreter that the soldiers have varying poses and facial expressions.
The dusty orange figures — ranging from 6 feet to 6-feet-5-inches tall — were about Obama’s height. Few of the site’s 5 million annual visitors get to look into their steely faces, as the first lady did.
The sycophantic coverage continued as Thompson asked “But the real question was, would she be able to resist joining a group of teens who were doing double Dutch?” Not content, the puff piece continued by pointing out that:
The sun was shining, and a light breeze filled the air. A young woman invited Obama to jump-rope, and she said yes. Changing from her kitten heels into flats, she skipped a green rope for several beats.
When the young women, from a high school affiliated with Northwest Polytechnic University, asked Obama to join in double Dutch — when two ropes are simultaneously turned in opposite directions — she demurred. “I’ve already done my jumping, and I’m not going to break a leg,” she said.
It must be nice for the Mrs. Obama to receive such positive coverage from a press that was not allowed to travel with her to China. If Krissah Thompson and the rest of the media continue to fawn over the first lady, what’s the point of even having a traveling press core?
