Thanks to Amberglow, for the once-missing link to the New Yorker story about Michelle Obama.

It's an interesting character sketch, well worth reading if you want to learn about the prospective First Lady.

A few observations...

She comes across as smart, focused, and aloof.

At 5' 11", she'd be in the ballpark of Eleanor Roosevelt as tallest presidential spouse, though Bill Clinton would dwarf either of them.

However (doing what's good for the party, of course), Michelle tries to chop the Big Dog and his legacy down to size:

In Cheraw, Obama belittled the idea that the Clinton years were ones of opportunity and prosperity: “The life that I’m talking about that most people are living has gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl."

And something to look forward to, ulp, in Barack's book:

In “The Audacity of Hope,” acknowledging the appeal of the Reagan Administration, Barack writes, “It was related to the pleasure that I still get from watching a well-played baseball game, or my wife gets from watching reruns of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Connect my all-time favorite sitcom to Ratmaster Ronnie? Harrumph!

For one thing, the show ceased production long before The Transformative Cowboy Grandpa brought mourning to America. And I have a hard time picturing "Dick Van Dyke" show creator Carl Reiner (or his son, Meathead) having a good word to say about Reagan.

The Robinsons [Michelle's family] went to church occasionally, but if they subscribed to any credo it was that of freethinking.

Now, c'mon, don't tease me like that! An atheist First Lady, now then you'd be talkin'.

Obama majored in sociology, investigating, in her senior thesis, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” the ways in which attending Princeton affected black alumni’s sense of connection to the black community. At Obama’s request, the thesis was embargoed until November 5, 2008. Last month, amid charges of hypocrisy—the Obama campaign has congratulated itself on transparency—Obama finally released the document to the Web site Politico.

Politico? WTF?

When she talks about wanting “my girls to travel the world with pride” and the decline of America “over my lifetime,” you wonder why her default pronoun is singular if the message is meant to be concern for others and inclusiveness.

I thought it was all about me. I mean us. I mean you.

Just after Barack was elected to the United States Senate, Michelle received a large pay increase—from $121,910 in 2004 to $316,962 in 2005. “Mrs. Obama is extremely overpaid,” one citizen wrote in a letter to the editor of the Tribune, after the paper published a story questioning the timing of the award. “Now, what is the real reason behind such an inflated salary?” Her bosses at the University of Chicago Hospitals vigorously defended the raise, pointing out that it put her salary on a par with that of other vice-presidents at the hospital. (As it happens, Obama has spent most of her life working within the two institutions for which she most frequently claims a populist disdain: government and the health-care system.)

Not bad for a single payee.

Interesting quote from Rev. Wright:

“In this country, racism is as natural as motherhood, apple pie, and the fourth of July. Many black people have been deluded into thinking that our BMWs, Lexuses, Porsches, Benzes, titles, heavily mortgaged condos and living environments can influence people who are fundamentally immoral.”

I wonder what Wright would make of this Audacity of Hope book I'm reading, which espouses a unity that will bring Americans together, including members of the party that's fueled by racism and classism (veiled or otherwise). I hope he'd be as skeptical about it as I am.

“We don’t want our church to receive the brunt of this notoriety,” Obama told me. I asked her whether Wright’s statements presented a problem for her or for Barack. “You know, your pastor is like your grandfather, right?” she said. “There are plenty of things he says that I don’t agree with, that Barack doesn’t agree with.” When it comes to absolute doctrinal adherence, she said, “I don’t know that there would be a church in this country that I would be involved in. So, you know, you make choices, and you sort of—you can’t disown yourself from your family because they’ve got things wrong. You try to be a part of expanding the conversation.” (She made a similar argument when I asked if she agreed with her husband in opposing gay marriage. “It’s like you gotta do the baby steps. . . . You don’t start with the hardest, toughest issues when you’re trying to unite a group.”)

Hey, those may be the best dogwhistles I've heard from the Obama campaign. More like this, please. Not as good as a broadside against religion or DOMA, but not bad, either, especially as (prospective) First Lady talk goes.

Still, one does wish she and her husband would take the audacious approach once in a while instead of always expecting the tough issues to wait (and wait and wait) for their turn.