This morning I was reading this article about President Obama speaking at a women’s-panel launch. President Obama said, “The purpose of this Council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy.”

He talked about his grandmother and mom raising him & his sister. However, I found it ironic that he would say his grandmother hit a “glass ceiling” when she was one of the first female vice presidents of the Bank of Hawaii. Maybe the glass ceiling was that she couldn’t be the bank president?

Then he talked about his wife, Michelle, and how she juggles work and parenting with grace & skill. But his next comment was the one that made me laugh (emphasis added) – “I had the privilege of participating in a historic campaign with a historic candidate who we now have the privilege of calling Madam Secretary.”

I guess it made me laugh because of how he delivered it – no mention that it was the presidential campaign, no little words to enlighten us to what made her a “historic” candidate … just that he won & now she’s the Secretary of State.

How come it didn’t matter when Condi was Secretary of State?

Instead of adulation, we heard things like this when Miss Rice was Secretary of State (from Wiki) – “Rice has appeared on Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people four times. Rice is one of only seven people in the entire world considered influential enough to have made the list so frequently. However, Time magazine has also accused her of squandering her influence, stating in February 1, 2007, that her “accomplishments as Secretary of State have been modest, and even those have begun to fade” and that she “has been slow to recognize the extent to which the U.S.’s prestige has declined. However, in its March 19, 2007 issue it followed up stating that Rice was “executing an unmistakable course correction in U.S. foreign policy.” In 2004 and 2005, Ms. Rice was ranked as the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine and number two in 2006 (following the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel). ^{It makes me sad that a black woman achieved so much in our society, only to be criticized, condescended to and ridiculed.}