'Les légumes du mal': Michelle Obama's Toxic Garden

On January 3 the usually non-partisan Food Network had its closest brush with politics, with predictable results. Bait and switch, Washington style.

Food Network aired a two hour Iron Chef: America featuring Michelle Obama. Our choleric FLOTUS was there to provide a message about Childhood Obesity and tell the chefs what the secret ingredient for the competition was. And the ingredient? Why, produce from the celebrated White House garden:

The chefs included White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford and star chefs Bobby Flay, Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse. Mrs. Obama showed up in an orange dress that looked like it would be very fashionable on runways. The kind planes land on. You half expected her to bust out some flags to wave at some passing aircraft. Then she declared they had to harvest the ingredients from the garden in order to create “five ultimate American dishes.”

Through the magic of TV, you’d think they plucked the veggies in Washington, DC and high tailed it over to the Kitchen Stadium in New York to whip up the grub. That would be as truthful as a campaign promise. The crops were picked in late October. The cook-off took place the following week in New York. Since the produce wouldn’t be fresh, they had to use “body double” veggies.

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And there’s a great reason for that. The food in the White House garden has been deemed toxic. They knew this last year, so the whole scene of picking food from the White House garden was as fraudulent as President Obama’s promise to put the health-care debate on C-SPAN.

The problem stems from a previous administration’s having used sewage sludge for fertilizer. Which means it will never be certified organic. Before you commentators start typing up anti-Bush screeds, the previous administration was the Clintons. Yes, one vainglorious administration passed on their agricultural legacy to another. The irony is almost as funny as a Joe Biden gaffe.

It’s nice to see the Democrats continue to show America their talents for improving the land with their “wise policies.” Leadership by example, and all that.

But then, we can’t exactly say that Iron Chef is anymore real than one of Obama’s political sideshows. After all, you didn’t really think that the White House chef was going to lose that battle, did you?