Nearly two decades later, it can be hard to remember just how flagrantly racist the rhetoric against the Obamas often was. During the primaries, Hillary Clinton’s aide Mark Penn spent a whole TV interview testing how many times he could smoosh the words “cocaine” and “Obama” together. Right-wingers insisted not only that Obama had been born outside the United States but that he’d been educated at a Muslim “madrassa.” Michelle Obama’s throwaway comment about not having felt fully “proud” of her country until recently was pilloried as if she had cried, “Kill Whitey!” Speaking of “Whitey,” someone started a spurious rumor that she’d been recorded using the word.