AFP: 'The Obamas Are the Planet's Hottest Rock Stars'

Move over Madonna, Miley, and Britney -- the Obamas are the hottest rock stars on the planet!

So wrote wire service Agence France-Presse Sunday in a piece so filled with sugar one might require an insulin injection to survive the full reading.

In an article entitled "Obamas Rock and Rule," AFP sunk to new lows in gushing and fawning over the first family:

Fans swooning over the First Family's every move, wall-to-wall media coverage and one pampered pooch: the Obamas are the planet's hottest rock stars busy revamping the image of the US presidency. [...]

Tweenie girls now pin posters of the Obama's daughters, Malia, 10 and Sasha, seven, to their bedroom walls and fantasize about joining White House sleepovers and becoming BFFL -- best friends for life -- with the First Kids.

Magazine editors fight for the coolest image of the new president and his wife, Michelle, whether digging in the new organic garden, showing off their honed muscles, or romping with the First dog, Bo.

A new swing set adorns the White House lawn for the girls, rock stars have given intimate invitation-only concerts, and the White House has been dragged into the Internet age after Obama was allowed to keep his beloved Blackberry.

And even though the United States is in the grip of its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it seems the Obamas can do no wrong.

Need that insulin injection yet? I understand...but there's more:

"They represent more than just the president and first lady, more than just partisan Democrats, more than just African-Americans," said Carl Sferrazza Anthony, historian to the Ohio-based National First Ladies' Library.

"It's almost like they represent a new way of how we should be thinking about ourselves, and that is the way people respond to them."

He highlighted the highly personal and emotional speech given by Michelle Obama to schoolgirls in London, in which she urged them to be true to themselves and draw from her example of what you can achieve in life. [...]

The First Lady, who only last year was criticized as an "angry black woman," has reinvented her image as mom-in-chief, focusing on family issues and often seen hugging and laughing with children.

Last week she joked with visiting kids that she didn't miss having to cook the dinner, and revealed she and her staff sometimes "sneak out, without telling anybody, and we go and test out all the fun places to eat in DC."

Almost like a First Lady has never spoken in public to children before, and Michelle came up with the idea.

But there's still more:

Washingtonians have been lapping it up. Restaurants graced by the Obamas, see seats booked up for weeks ahead afterwards.

Kids are clamoring to get onto basketball teams in the hope that they will bump into one of the girls, and by extension their parents. And suddenly frumpy, staid old Washington is cool again.

"Washington is in a real golden age. The Obamas have brought a level energy and enthusiasm into the city in the last couple of months," said Garrett Graff, political correspondent at The Washingtonian.