Americans Have No Idea What To Do With First Ladies

TW: This piece in the Economist demonstrates the circular logic the media and presumably Americans apply to our first ladies (and I say ladies on purpose once we have a first gentleman a whole host of new dilemmas will arise). The piece laments the superficiality of the early coverage and roles of Ms. Obama, then outlines all the reasons why such roles are prevalent for first ladies. Then suggests Ms. Obama charge forward to blaze new trails given her tremendous talents.

The challenge is that if she is traditional, she is blamed for timidity see below. If she tries to blaze new trails, one can safely assume she will become a lightening rod within weeks for all of those who oppose her husband plus many others. Lots of luck Michelle.

From Economist:
"BY ANY measure Michelle Obama is a remarkable first lady. She is highly educated, with degrees from Princeton and Harvard, and professionally accomplished, having worked for a top law firm, a big-city government and a big hospital. And she is the first first lady who is the direct descendant of slaves.

Yet what have we heard about this paragon since her husband won the election? That she likes to display her “perfectly toned” arms in public. That she has a penchant for mixing designer clothes with J. Crew. That she and her husband had a romantic dinner together in a four-star Italian restaurant.

...The news stories about Mrs Obama are almost entirely devoted to fluff. CNN has run a segment on “how to get Michelle Obama’s toned arms”. Every fashion magazine worth the name has run pieces on “the secrets of Michelle’s style”.

...This is more than just a response to public demand. The White House has been doing its best to turn the first lady into a celebrity mother-cum-clothes-horse. Her White House website describes her “first and foremost” as “Malia and Sasha’s mom” before adding that, “before she was a mother”, she was “Fraser and Marian Robinson’s daughter”.

...It is not difficult to understand why the White House has chosen this tack. Hillary Clinton’s determination to act as a virtual co-president back in 1993 helped to create a backlash against her husband’s administration. It also raised uncomfortable questions about power and accountability. Given America’s continued neuroses about race, an outspoken black first lady might prove to be even more divisive than an outspoken white one.

...There is no shortage of conservative journalists who are willing to present her as “the bitter, anti-American, ungrateful, rude, crude, ghetto, angry Michelle Obama”, to quote one blogger.

...But there is a danger that the White House is overreacting to Mrs Clinton’s failures back in 1993-94, and a worry that all this fluff is both demeaning to Mrs Obama and disappointing for some of her husband’s most passionate supporters, particularly professional women. Mrs Obama did not campaign as a traditional first lady, staring at her husband with dewy-eyed admiration and limiting her comments to bland pleasantries. She criss-crossed the country giving her own speeches. And powerful speeches they were too: intelligent, substantive and well-delivered. She was particularly important in shoring up her husband’s support among blacks (who were suspicious at first of his exotic background) and professional women (who were attracted to Hillary Clinton), earning the nickname “the closer” from the campaign for her ability to get people to sign up with Mr Obama.

Mrs Obama has a unique ability to act as an advertisement for the virtues of hard work and stable families. She grew up in a solid working-class family on Chicago’s tough South Side, sitting down to family dinner every night, attending a local magnet school and following her brother to Princeton. She is now repeating this virtuous pattern with her own children.

Mrs Obama also has a unique understanding of the precariousness of black life. Born six months before LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, she has benefited from the explosion of opportunities for blacks in both higher education and the professions...she also knows the devastation that job losses, drugs, crime and family break-up have wrought on the black working class. More than 60% of black children these days are brought up without a father.

It is arguable, of course, that Mrs Obama is already doing enough to inspire her fellow Americans without running the risks inherent in pronouncing on policy. But during the campaign she raised a lot of thought-provoking questions—about “the flimsy difference between success and failure” in America, about the removal of rungs from the ladder of opportunity, and about the plight of families at the bottom of the heap. It would be good to hear a bit more about what Mrs Obama thinks and a lot less about what she wears."
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13326771