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| NYT Obama scribe cashes in. Out Tuesday Jan. 10. |
NYT recycles Michelle Obama's 2010 post-midterm greasing of the media skids for a loss in November 2012: "There are worse things than losing an election." First Lady ex-aide.
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| Obama press spox Robert Gibbs lands in WH dunk tank after cursing out Michelle Obama -- but not to her face. Chicago Tribune USA Today Update: He's apologized. Lynn Sweet Chicago Sun-Times |
Authoress Jodi Kantor oozes unauthorized in a 3,300 NYT piece posted Friday night: "She has been an unrecognized force in her husband’s administration and that her story has been one first of struggle, then turnaround and greater fulfillment. . . . Even as Mrs. Obama dazzled Americans with her warmth, glamour and hospitality early in the presidency, she was also deeply frustrated and insecure about her place in the White House. . . . she knew the history of first ladies —like Nancy Reagan and Mrs. Clinton — who had been deemed meddlers, unelected figures who wielded unearned power."
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| Obama: "She feels as if our rudder isn't set right." |
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| "Everyone was waiting for a black woman to make a mistake." |
Jodi Kantor: "Her husband’s advisers — in particular, Mr. Gibbs — were worried
that the White House might appear oblivious to public anger about
joblessness, banker bailouts and bonuses. The result was constant,
anxious give-and-take between the East and West Wings about vacations,
décor, entertainment, even matters as small as whether to announce the
hiring of a new florist.
“We all have watched what happens when people get caricatured,” Mr.
Gibbs said in an interview, explaining why he policed such personal
matters. With a mistake like John Edwards’s $400 haircut in 2007,
“there’s no way to correct that.” Other aides said there was a reason
Mr. Gibbs became the main enforcer of the rules of political life:
because Mr. Obama, all too aware that his wife never wanted that life,
would not."
Kantor: “The Obama marriage was awkward for everyone: for the aides, for the president . . . and for the first lady.” NYP
Related: Reuters via NewsMaxKantor: “The Obama marriage was awkward for everyone: for the aides, for the president . . . and for the first lady.” NYP
The Obamas are caricatures: 90+ golf games, lavish vacations on the taxpayers' dime, $540 Lanvin tennis shoes, $2,000 sundresses, and much, much more . . .
And don't forget, they have to live in public housing, too.
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah! Slipped my mind...
ReplyDeleteVia my BlackBerry
From Mike Allen's Politico Playbook: http://politico.com/playbook:
ReplyDeleteA TOP DEMOCRATIC SOURCE emails that the book is a '[g]ood, positive story of the first lady transitioning into a role she never expected to have. The stuff about tension between her and Rahm is way overblown. And there is a ton of pop psychology from an author that thinks she has an intense relationship with them, based on 24 minutes spent 3 years ago' -- an interview for the N.Y. Times Magazine piece that got Kantor this book contract.
--The first lady's complaints about the president and his staff were often the same as "the personal complaints about her husband over the years, including "not planning, not keeping her informed, focusing on his own needs, taking on risky projects without seeing their potential for failure - these were all charges she had leveled against him since the beginning of their union."
--While other first couples have become involved in the social life of Washington, the Obamas "burrowed even deeper within a tiny, preexisting circle." They created what Kantor describes as "an even smaller bubble within a bubble - an intimate, alternative world in which the president and first lady could count on total understanding, constant sympathy, and unconditional love."
--Obama needs his wife to be tough. "That is something about the president's personality in general," one aide said. "He likes to have people play the bad guy." Gibbs, Kantor notes, played that role with the press.
--As Obama's political career skyrocketed, he became more private and self-protective. Some of his Senate staffers called him "Barackward" - melding Barack and awkward - to describe "moments when he seemed unable or unwilling to connect" with others.
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE COMMENT, from spokesman Eric Schultz : "This is the author's take, reflecting her own opinions, on a remarkably strong relationship the President and First Lady - both of whom share an unwavering commitment to each other, and to improving the lives of Americans. The book, an overdramatization of old news, is about a relationship between two people whom the author has not spoken to in years. The author last interviewed the Obamas in 2009 for a magazine piece, and did not interview them for this book. The emotions, thoughts and private moments described in the book, though often seemingly ascribed to the President and First Lady, reflect little more than the author's own thoughts. These second-hand accounts are staples of every Administration in modern political history and often exaggerated."
UNOFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE COMMENT, in adviser emails to Playbook: "Washington will enjoy the second-hand gossip ... [S]he begged for an interview up to the day the book went to the printer ... Is it really news that Rahm wasn't seen as a great manager? Or that, as is true in every White House, there were occasional East Wing-West Wing tensions?"
Do they eat institutional food too?
ReplyDeleteMichelle's secret to weight gain? Alice in Wonderland mushrooms. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/in_blunderland_hKpNQkHfvpEWe4F51kI4dP
ReplyDeletegot to be joking telling everyone to be skinny well hell your no looker and need to tell her husband show his real birth cerficated and his green card he no leader
ReplyDeleteI admire Michele Obama as I do Hilary Clinton, Laura Bush, Jacqeline Kennedy and, of course, Eleanor Roosevelt. What a tremendous sacrifice these women have made for us of their own lives, careers and families. I think a great cause of the unwarranted comments about our United States of America First Ladies is that so many Americans do not truly respect women. Catherine Keating
ReplyDelete