(Photos lifted from here)

Physician, Heal Thyself!

Alice Walker dispenses advice about family priorities to Obama:

"A primary responsibility that you do have... is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. "

"..play with your gorgeous wife..." ??? The feisty, opinionated, assertive, capable Michelle, who is in no danger of ever being relegated to a corner in the White House ?

It also defies credibility that Alice Walker should dispense advice to Obama, on spousal and parental affection and care.

In this very personal account by Rebecca Walker, Alice's daughter, it seems Walker herself was the most negligent of parents:

"There was always food in the fridge and she did all the things my mother didn't, such as attending their school events, taking endless photos and telling her children at every opportunity how wonderful they were.

My mother was the polar opposite. She never came to a single school event, she didn't buy me any clothes, she didn't even help me buy my first bra - a friend was paid to go shopping with me. If I needed help with homework I asked my boyfriend's mother."

There have been many glimpses of tenderness and loving care among the Obamas, even during the most stressful time of his campaign (uncharacteristically emotional in his Mother's day interview with Wolf Blitzer, when he was talking of his wife as being such a wonderful mother).

Has Alice Walker been watching at all?

If anything, it is Obama who should be giving her advice about priorities. He could also give her a hint or two about critical self-awareness. Silly woman.