Being Michelle Obama, The Toughest Job In America

The wife of the former Prime Minister of Japan swears her soul was once beamed up by a triangular- shaped UFO and shipped to Venus. Miyuku Hatoyama reported Venus to be “a very beautiful place” and “really green”. Perhaps not surprisingly, her husband lasted eight months as Japan’s Prime Minister.

Panama’s former First Lady Ana Mae Endara told country protesters they could stick their vote “you know where.” Panama’s voters did not oblige, however, giving her husband a mere 2.3 % in the next election.

And the First Lady of France looks like this:

Results may vary with First Ladies, but we are fortunate Michelle Obama is ours. In the face of arguably the most polarized Washington ever, Michelle Obama has stayed above the fray, shrugging off controversy with a quiet regality and steely repose. Michelle became the youngest First Lady (43) since Jacqueline Kennedy. She is the first minority First Lady in our nation’s history. Her great-great-great grandmother was a slave. She’s a fresh face after decades of the Bush-Clinton dynasties. In January 2009, glossy New York City magazines breathlessly gushed how Michelle would be the 21st Century’s Jackie and usher in an age of Bamelot in Washington.

20 months later and 40 days before midterm elections, however, these same tabloids smear Michelle as the 21st Century’s Marie Antoinette.

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FOX News once dubbed her a “terrorist fist jabber”. Secret Service code-named her Renaissance. But all Michelle really wants to be called is Mom. “My first priority will always be to make sure that our girls are healthy and grounded,” Michelle said. No easy feat when Sasha and Malia are the youngest First Kids since John F. Kennedy Jr. was crawling under JFK’s desk.



And the Kennedys didn’t have Twitter or TMZ to worry about. Or Glenn Beck. After Malia famously asked Daddy Obama this summer, “Daddy, did you plug the [BP] hole yet?”, Glenn Beck mocked the 8-year-old daughter on public radio. The man who likens himself to be our generation’s Martin Luther King pretended he was Malia and asked, “[Daddy] Why do you hate black people so much?”

All Michelle wants is normal. The first instructions she gave her White House staff were: ““Don’t make their beds. Make mine. Skip the kids. They have to learn these things.” Bedtime is 8 PM. Always. And, no, she doesn’t let her daughters watch the Jersey Shore.

Michelle checked off her top campaign issue on a chilly day in March 2009. The girls came home from school, bounded up the White House steps, and declared, “This feels like home.” And Michelle could finally breathe a sigh of relief. For a minute anyway.

You see, Michelle chose to become Barack Obama’s wife. She did not, however, choose to become First Lady of the United States of America. She wanted to raise her two daughters in Chicago and watch her beloved Sex & The City reruns in peace. Not that this will elicit sympathy. Not when you trade in a minivan for Air Force One.

But the ever self-aware Michelle is ever fearful of the White House bubble. It’s why Barack Obama tries to read ten raw, uncensored letters from regular Americans every night before going to sleep. It’s why Michelle constantly asks friends, “Do I still feel like Michelle?”

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Michelle always reminds herself where she came from. A stuffy, one-bedroom apartment on the Southside of Chicago. A single hanging blanket in the living room divided her bedroom from her brother’s. From her humble origins, Michelle soared up the pantheon of academia—Princeton University, Harvard Law School—but was always astonished by the lifestyle of her wealthier peers. Every day, she saw college students cruising in BMWs. “I didn’t even know parents who drove BMWs.”

Michelle graduated cum laude and landed at the prestigious Sidley Austin law firm as a summer associate. She remembers scratching her head at the name of some new hire she was supposed to mentor. His name was Barack Obama.

Barack asked her out within a month, but Michelle refused, “I thought no way. This is completely tacky.” Obama persisted, impressed her with his community organizing fervor and asked again a few weeks later. He took her to see Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” on the first date. Michelle vetted Barack with a pick-up basketball game with her brother Craig Robinson (now head coach of the Oregon State men’s basketball team). Barack swooshed it. Robinson reported back to his sister, “He was certainly a team player – he wasn’t a pig, he passed when he was supposed to pass, and he cut when he was supposed to cut.”



So how did the 44th President of the United States propose? After Barack passed the bar, he took Michelle to an exquisite Chicago restaurant. “Then the waiter came over with the dessert and a tray. And there was the ring,” Michelle recalls. “And I was completely shocked.” The couple married in October 1992. The notorious Reverend Jeremiah Wright presided over their wedding. 18 years and 2 daughters later, the two are still hopelessly in love. White House interns learned early on to be careful rounding West Wing corners, lest they find Barack and Michelle canoodling.

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Nancy Reagan never met a red gown she didn’t like. Hillary Clinton rocked the ubiquitous headband, then the pantsuit. Michelle does J-Crew. She briefly sparked an ArmsGate media frenzy with her right to bare arms.



“Michelle Obama connects to the modern woman,” observed Vanity Fair correspondent Amy Fine Collins. “She has a sleek style that’s not overdone.” Totally. It’s why Michelle cracked Vanity Fair’s International Best-Dressed List for the second straight year. France’s Carla Bruni-Sarkozy also made the list.

Alas, Michelle and Carla share another less fashionable distinction. According to an unauthorized book entitled “Carla and the Ambitious