On the front of Monday’s Style section, The Washington Post promoted a forthcoming biography of Michelle Obama by Peter Slevin, a Chicago-based Post correspondent covering Chicago and Obama’s career until 2012.
Post reporter Krissah Thompson began with the Obamas living together before marriage until the story went inside the paper, and how Slevin is “looking closely at the role race played in shaping her worldview, particularly at Princeton and Harvard Law.”
“To say that during her Princeton years she could not envision an African American president is like saying the sun rises and sets every day,” writes Slevin, who was not available for interviews about his book until close to its April 7 publication. “Michelle believed that there existed a separate ‘Black culture’ and ‘White culture.’”
The headline on the front of Style was bland: "Biography sheds light on first lady's Chicago years." Inside, it says "Book on first lady explores racial views." There’s also this racial tidbit:
It does have a few moments that may ruffle Michelle Obama, who closely guards the privacy of her mother and daughters. Slevin resurfaces an old interview with Marian Robinson from the public television show Chicago Tonight, which profiled Barack Obama in 2004 as he ran for the U.S. Senate. Asked how she felt about Obama’s biracial background, Robinson said with a laugh: “That didn’t concern me as much as had he been completely white....I guess that I worry about races mixing because of the difficulty — not for, so much for prejudice or anything. It’s just very hard.”
There is pushback from the Obama camp in the Post story, noting that Michelle’s brother Craig Robinson married a white woman without their mother objecting.
Thompson’s story left out some tidbits other publications are noticing.
People magazine (online):
Michelle Obama may be our best-dressed FLOTUS yet, but did you know she once was denied the "Best Camper" award because she swore too much?
"At a city-run camp [on the shores of Lake Michigan], 10-year-old Michelle missed out on the best camper award because of her salty tongue. 'I was going through my cursing stage,' she said. 'I didn't realize until my camp counselor at the end came up and said, "You know, you would have been best camper in your age group, but you curse so much." ' The news floored her. 'And I thought I was being cool.' "
First Lady Michelle Obama was so disturbed by the tragic 2011 Arizona shooting spree involving then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and other victims that she recorded a video about it — but her husband’s office wouldn’t release it publicly.
“The West Wing preferred the President to take the lead, and to be seen as taking it”...
He quotes former aide Trooper Sanders as saying Michelle Obama rejected doing some of what prior first ladies had "been doing since 1952" because to do that would turn the East Wing "into a velvet coffin, comfortable but pointless."
....She is, he says, prone to overprepare for events and has the highest standards for her staff and the president's. In the White House, Slevin writes, she "was an early riser and her predawn emails to her aides, if she felt they had fallen short, could be blistering."
Thompson can be outdone in the Michelle-boosting category. Take Essence magazine on the Slevin book:
Did you know that Michelle Obama once left a job as a law firm associate making $120,000 for a City Hall position that essentially cut her paycheck in half to $60,000 a year? Talk about dedication!
This has a rebuttal. Earth to Essence: Did you know that Michelle Obama tripled her salary at the University of Chicago Medical Center after her husband was elected to the Senate (to $316,000)?
