I think it is incredibly hard for the American psyche, or at least liberal voters, to reflect deeply and critically about Barack Obama and also Michelle. They are treasured for a reason, and especially in a time of overt white supremacy.
But what Obama(s) and Bush(s) share in value is that they are imperialists. This means that you can sit down with Jenna Bush, or with any white elite, and fondly reminiscence how war crimes and the annihilation of brown civilians is just "policy" - and how many you annihilate and by what technology is just a "difference in policy". How there was a time in "history" where you could just sit down in a civil manner with people who you share a class consciousness with and agree that killing people in the name of Empire is good for America by averting the discussion from how inequality is the source of your wealth and privilege, you just disagree how overtly racist the justification should be and how many have to die. You as part of the elite can identify with the compartmentalization of "values" from "policy", from being complicit in killing thousand of civilians and going home and embracing your family, of not being a monster, of not having fangs, you can recognize and forgive because you both *truly* believe that you part-take in savage killings is saving the Empire abroad. You can see the father behind the imperialist, the loving husband behind the colonizer. You look at Jenna, deep into her eyes, and you know that being here, with these Vietnamese girls, and Julia Roberts, saving these girls, giving them the voice they deserve, your voice, makes it clear to you, it was worth it, they had to die so these other brown people could live. You are an elite class of pragmatists, after all.
The context of that video is actually really important, as someone pointed out previously in this thread in order to recast the comment as "out of context" - I think it shows the comments exactly in the right in context. The context is: the political elites, the justifications for Empire, American exceptionalism, and how making sense of savage policies of conquest and killing is merely a tonal shift in policy - the chords changing from the major lift to the minor fall in imperial conquest. 'Policy' here meaning what justifications are offered for the pragmatics of killing brown civilian populations without remorse. The justifications and modes are different, but they justify the same thing: Empire at the expense of brown people's lives abroad. The context of that video also shows well how the justification is produced among liberal elites, through "humanitarianism" - the backdrop for the interview is Americans saving the Vietnamese girls (from the legacy of previous American Empire Dreams and interventions) - and how that is different from the justifications of what Bush (re)presents. They share the values of recasting war crimes as humanitarianism and savior, but the justification, the discourse used to create pro-imperial consensus, is vastly different because the constituents. One uses explicitly racist arguments for domination, the other merely implicitly as it justifies empire as a humane venture delivering progress, the inferiority of the Other is still there, but hidden just behind the facade. So yes, the values are the same - the recasting of killing of brown people as benign - but the policy and discourse are vastly different.
