Michelle Obama and the death of breeding. Thank god

Michelle Obama has been a giant hit, I've observed with joy, but something has been made of her gaffe with the Queen of England, putting her arm around her. You don't touch the Queen.
Oh– of course, you don't touch the Queen! Forgot that. Egad.
I think of my own inability to grok such basic rules when I came out of public schools and an academic Jewish family to wherever I got socially. In that sense, Michelle and I and a lot of other parvenu ethnics are alike, but here we are. And the comparisons of Michelle Obama to Jackie Kennedy leave out all the intermittent sociology: Jacqueline Bouvier actually had "breeding" and would never have made such a mistake. She would have picked up such stuff in finishing school, or wherever she went. That's what people wanted then in the American aristocracy.
There was a time (I'm guessing; I never had manners) when there was one ideal of breeding– ideals flowing from European aristocracy– and there would have been utter consensus on how you conducted yourself with a queen.  But that time's over. Michelle visited a London school where there were many darkskinned girls, and some wore headcoverings. We are hurtling forward into that global world; and this is America's joy in the Obamas, that we have wisely chosen leaders for this new age, educated by the best American institutions, people with real grace, but without archaic breeding. So I say screw breeding and the horse you came in on. Why not a new standard: you know how to handle yourself in any situation.