In the midst of all this serious stuff like massive spending, effect on our future economy and structure of our country, I needed a bit of frivolous reading.
In my cyber travels, I happened to run across two unrelated articles today about our current, and former, First Ladies. What struck me immediately was the vast difference in “depth” between them.
i.e. first article… an ABC news ditty catching up on how Laura Bush and hubby were adjusting to citizenry.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Mrs. Bush said she and her husband were settling into a normal, post-presidency life at their new home in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas after spending a month at their ranch in Crawford while the house was finished.
Mrs. Bush said she has yet to cook a meal herself, because friends have been bringing over prepared dinners to welcome them back to town. The Bushes have had several large dinner parties with old friends, but they had to resort to borrowing furniture to accommodate their guests.
“We have very little furniture. We don’t have a kitchen table or a dining room table,” she said. “Friends loaned me a kitchen table and the other night I had 16 people for dinner and I had to borrow chairs from the Secret Service next door.”
How old time neighborly! Welcomed back with prepared dinners. I think we’re safe to say they aren’t asking for any political favors…
Laura Bush launched her First Lady’s agenda dedicated to education back in March 2001. Actually she had three stated goals on her agenda:
1: recruiting new teachers to offset classroom shortages, which are expected to worsen in the decade ahead;
2: encouraging more early-childhood development programs;
3: and convincing parents to read to their preschoolers to nurture reading skills.
Hummm… that last one rings a bell. Isn’t it Obama who mimicks the same with his constant calls for parents to read aloud to their children? Well, if he choses to ape someone, at least he picked one classy lady.
Post 911, Mrs. Bush’s agenda morphed with the nation’s intensity… focusing more on the women and their life under Shariah law. She expanded her education agenda to advocate for the same for women of an oppressed Islamic culture. Laura Bush made three trips to Afghanistan… two solo. The first trips ever made by a US First Lady to that country.
The former first lady said she hopes to return to Afghanistan but for now she is watching closely to see what the Obama administration does in the region. So far she’s encouraged by his commitment to Afghanistan and hopes that the government and the American people continue to support rebuilding efforts there. She said there are “encouraging signs” out of Afghanistan as well, but the United States must continue to have a presence there, working with the Afghan people and government to rebuild what she called “a failed state.”
“What we see is it’s very easy to destroy something, but very, very difficult to rebuild. And that’s what we’re watching now,” she said.
As first lady, Mrs. Bush visited over 70 countries, bringing awareness to issues like women’s rights, education and prevention of HIV/AIDS and malaria.
The opportunity she had to represent the American people abroad is one aspect of the White House that she said she misses, but she plans to remain active on interests important to her through the Freedom Institute that will be a part of former President Bush’s library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
“The Freedom Institute isn’t just freedom from tyranny, although that will be a central part of it, but also freedom from disease, freedom from poverty, and freedom from illiteracy,” she said.
Article #2… other than fluff pieces about Michelle Obama’s “buff” bare arms during the psuedo SOTU address, and her general fashion since moving to the Oval Office, there’s not been much on Ms. Obama’s First Lady agenda.
Looking at her staff appointments, the one that stands out is Jocelyn Frye – serving in dual capacity as Deputy Assistant to the POTUS for Domestic Policy, and Director of Policy and Projects to the First Lady.
Ms. Frye used to be the General Counsel for The National Partnership for Women and Families organization. She headed up that organization’s “Workplace Fairness Program”, dedicating herself to gender and wage discrimination. Ms. Frye was also an instrumental powerhouse in getting the first Obama admin bill thru, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which, among other things, extended the period for legal recourse for compensation discrimination.
I sure thought that was a clue befitting Ms. Obama’s campaign speeches and demeanor… advocating for women’s rights, with particular emphasis on the black woman in the business world.
Our next hint as to what Ms. Obama may have unveiled as her particular First Lady agenda came from a Feb 3rd article by Nia-Malika Henderson at Politico.
But as Obama made her first official trip outside the White House on Monday — to the Department of Education — the shape and direction of her office, with advisers who have worked for Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Edwards, clearly bear a lot more resemblance to Clinton’s style than to that of Laura Bush.
The credentials of Michelle Obama’s new team “give us a glimpse of the future,” said Carl Anthony Sferrazza, a former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan who also wrote the introduction to Hillary Clinton’s “Invitation to the White House: At Home With History.”
“This is not going to be a first lady focused on sleeveless designer dresses and puppy names but on serious and complex issues,” he predicted.
Mr. Sferrazza may be recanting his words, and shrinking away in embarrassment. Because apparently the current First Lady is *all* about designer dresses.
From the second article today in the DC Examiner by Byron York: apparently the WH social secretary, Desiree Rogers, was spotted at New York’s Fashion Week shows on – as a WH aide was quoted – “… a fact-finding mission. She’s acting as a cultural liaison for the White House; she’s researching fashion and music.”
Well, we can all cool our jets of excitement now. Ms. Obama has picked her first starting agenda… advocating for young fashion designers.
I called the White House to check if that quote was accurate. It was. An aide explained that first lady Michelle Obama “has taken a particular interest in showcasing the work of young up-and-coming designers who have chosen fashion as their path and who are artists in their own right and who are introduced at places like Fashion Week.”
It’s hard to put Herrera, Karan and Jacobs in the up-and-coming category, but never mind: Perhaps we’ll be seeing punky, funky ponchos and Day-Glo metallics at some future White House function. I asked whether the first lady considered Rogers’ hitting the fashion shows a little frivolous, given the seriousness of our times. “I think you’re assigning a value judgment to the fashion industry,” I was told. “She doesn’t think it is frivolous at all.”
Oh Mr. Sferrazza… I do feel sorry for you with that “hopeful” prediction now. Not to mention, I’m rather embarrassed at the priorities of my First Lady.
But wait… it gets better:
I talked to two former White House social secretaries, one Democrat and one Republican. “I don’t really understand where fashion ties in with the social secretary’s job,” the Republican told me, “because the only fashion she needs to worry about is her own, and she has to make sure she does not eclipse the first lady.
On the other hand, the Democrat said, the fashion industry is a real industry, “a major business, and a major export business, for the United States.” The first family, she continued, can “set a certain sense of style for fashion, food and wine — you try to spotlight all things that are wonderfully American and represent some of America’s best industries.”
The Obama White House stressed to me that Rogers did much more in New York than attend fashion shows. She had a full schedule — the aide wouldn’t say exactly what it was — looking for new artists, musicians and other cultural figures who might take part in White House events.
Yes… planning all those White House parties and stacking them with “cultural figures” is certainly a high priority. sigh…
Naturally none of this superfluous foo-fer-rah will draw the ire of the adoring media. Like, say for example, Nancy Reagan had when, under even worse economic numbers for unemployment, she was called on the carpet by the NYTs who accused her of heartlessly “exercising her opulent tastes in an economy that is inflicting hardship on so many.”
Even Laura Bush… for her more admirable and selfless cause, didn’t escape the media hatred… with femi-nazi Susan J. Douglas wondering how Laura Bush sleeps at night.
The worst First Lady in recent memory has had no consistent program or agenda to changes things for the better, while at the same time providing PR cover for her husband.
In contrast, just what did Ms. Douglas predict for Michelle O? The latest word comes from her Jan 1st article for In These Times where she laments how the 2008 Presidential campaign was “.. all about women, and not about women at all.” After bashing Palin as setting back women’s rights 50 years, she reserved her only praise for the current First Lady, saying:
Indeed, the person making the most sustained case for a focus on female-centered issues was Michelle Obama.
Did she mean female issues like fashion?? Wonder how she feels about that vote of confidence now…
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.