Thursday, August 12, 2010

With Spain, Michelle Obama's crafted 'everywoman' persona is forever broken

*
"When images of Jean Paul Gaultier-clad First Lady Michelle Obama on a $75,000-a-day Spanish holiday hit the wires, controversy was bound to erupt back home.
  • Her carefully crafted image as "everywoman" was blown.

In addition to the high cost, the evolving justifications for the trip offered by the White House's flack were just as dizzying.

  • First it was a private, mother-daughter trip that press secretary Robert Gibbs refused to comment on.

Then, the White House said she was paying for most of the trip, but that the

  • taxpayers would pay for some of it because she'd be meeting with the King and Queen of Spain.

The spin revealed that the White House had a public relations problem: After attempting to further the notion that she was just the woman next door, it couldn't help that the First Lady looked positively royal. That only cemented the suspicion that

"The First Lady is doing her part - and then some - to be an ambassador of total glam when she travels.

  • Have you ever seen a First Lady looking quite so now?"

I don't know about Glamour's perception of now, but currently 14.6 million people are unemployed. Now is a time when people are losing their homes.

The backlash from her vacation also showcased an antithesis to the story line of moderation and

"We like to joke that the South Side of Chicago is our Kennebunkport," she said to Vogue in 2008. Months later,

  • she stepped out in $540 Lanvin sneakers to volunteer at a food bank.
  • The disconnect was obvious.

In April 2007, she told a crowd that "my life now is not really that much different from many of yours. Every woman that I know, regardless of race, education, income, background, political affiliation,

  • is struggling to keep her head above water."

Staying above water on the luxurious Costa del Sol junket must have been a real challenge. And now, while we eat cake, she eats her words.

  • Fashion magazines have long displayed two competing theories in their profiles on the First Lady.

While they're more than willing to advance the narrative that she's just a down-home gal, some

  • can't help but play up her penchant for the highlife,

Andre Leon Talley, an editor for Vogue, wrote after the 2008 election, "She almost seems like any other mom recently relocated to a city because of her husband's new job."

Oprah Winfrey has said Obama is "bringing a sense of connection and accessibility to that position that no nation has ever witnessed."

  • That's what they wanted the country to think.

Spain, however, revealed the reality: Obama isn't an average mom and wife,

  • and she doesn't think so of herself, either.

That's why the Marie Antoinette comparison is apt: The trip evokes a similar contempt for the plebeians.

  • We might expect such detachment from celebrities, but not public servants. A leader shouldn't be living like a monarch when the rest of the country feels like paupers.

At least Antoinette was being candid about it. Now it's the First Lady's turn."...

  • via Lucianne.com









No comments: