Michelle Obama Watch

We haven’t been covering them, but Michelle Obama has been traveling all over the country doing town hall meetings with women. The October 6th issues of The Weekly Standard will feature an article written by Charlotte Hays called “A Kinder, Gentler Mrs. Obama” They basically say that during those meetings, Michelle has taken on the personality of Oprah which of course infers that she is not being her “true self” ie. the Michelle, the ABW.

We are definitely in the realm of Michelle-as-Oprah. It is a kinder, gentler version of the Michelle who was once known for conducting an entirely different kind of workshop–tough “diversity training” sessions in Chicago back in the early 1990s. Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy describes these sessions in her new book, Michelle: A Biography (Simon & Schuster)–an enormously valuable source for the context of Michelle’s life. “Michelle was tough, tough in a good sense,” Julian Posada, her deputy when she was director of Public Allies, a nonprofit that trained young people to work with other nonprofits, is quoted as saying. “She was very good about being meticulous about the details: Are you on message? Are we meeting people’s expectations?” The Weekly Standard