Contact O'Dwyer's: 271 Madison Ave., #600, New York, NY 10016; Tel: 212/679-2471; Fax: 212/683-2750
O'Dwyer's Inside News of Public Relations & Marketing Communications - odwyerpr.com Subscribe to Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter & get FREE online access plus O'Dwyer's monthly magazin
 Sign In | Subscribe | Free E-Mail Newsletter rss,facebook,twitter
rss facebook twitter rss facebook twitter
 
 

obama

 

 


 

Jan. 11, 2012

FIRST LADY RIPS DEPICTION

 

First Lady Michelle Obama today ripped a new book that depicts her in conflict with President Obama's top advisors, telling CBS News that she rejects her portrayal as "some kind of angry black woman."

"The Obamas," written by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, outlines high tension between the First Lady and former press secretary Robert Gibbs and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the aftermath of the loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, tussle over healthcare and fallout from bank bailouts.

The book says the First Lady never directly confronted either Gibbs or Emanuel, but made her feelings known through others.

The NYT on Jan. 7 published a front-page adaptation of the book that hit bookstores yesterday.  

That piece called Michelle Obama an "unrecognized force in her husband's administration and that her story has been one first of struggle, then turnaround and greater fulfillment."

Neither Obama was interviewed for the book. Kantor says she gathered the material from 30 current and former White House advisors and friends of the First Couple.

The First Lady told CBS that she never reads books "about other people's impressions of people."

She suspects there is a market for a book about some "conflicted situation" at the White House. "That's been an image people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced, that I'm some kind of angry black woman," she told CBS.

 
return to video page of odwyerpr.com >>
Tell O'Dwyer's what you think
Commentaries on subject matter are welcome. Personal attacks are not allowed. O'Dwyer's reserves the right to cover any story it deems newsworthy.

Responses:
 

Fed Up In NYC! (1/11):
Welcome to politics... if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen!

Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (1/11):
Who can blame here for being ticked off? In the past, the President's "little lady" was supposed to be a kind of non-entity for the most part, someone who went along to get along....until Eleanor Roosevelt emerged as a powerful advocate for the poor and a columnist....Betty Ford courageously established efforts to help alcoholics, etc. Comes now the fact Ms Obama is real person and a participative woman, and all that Kantor could find to help hype a book was to make it somehow unladylike to vent. I am not s fan of the President or any of the other pretenders to the White House these days, but it should be a badge of honor for Ms Obama to be seen as a real person with opinions that wrankle small minds.

Tim McMahon (1/12):
Salacious headline. No story to back it up. Too much of this it seems, your credibility is waning.

Eye on Washington (1/12):
Mr. McMahon: Salacious headline? Hardly: "First Lady Rips Dipiction." Not one salacious word there. No story to back it up? Not so. Credibility lost? Why and by whom?

Wes Pedersen (1/12):
In truth, many of the First Ladies have had cause to be angry; their husbands have too often been reluctant to show that their wives are real people with real people's abilities and intelligence. I am thinking of Pat Nixon, who never let a trace of intelligence, but sat with that strange, fixed smile at her husband's stupefying orations.

Mamie Eisenhower had cause for bitterness, anger and what Washington whispered was drinking habit. Who would not have been angry with the media on hand to remind her that her husband had been having an overseas fling with his pretty young Jeep driver?

And Jackie Kennedy: expected to dazzle while Jack indulged his appetite for illicit sex.

Most presidents of the past, and leading candidates, have used their wives as election props. Meekness has been demanded. Michelle Obama rates high marks for not losing her private personna while showing that First Ladies can have open, public lives governed by their confidence in their husbands -- and for reminding the world that they are far above the stereotypes of "angry Black women."

Seriously? (1/12):
I heard her interview with Gail King. She hardly "ripped" anything --she's low key to the point of being a shadow of herself. She just said the book wasn't accurate and she explained what she sees as her role. RIPPED? Feels like a Huffington Post headline.

Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (1/20):
What Ms Obama really should get upset about is the disastrous decision her husband announced last week to demolish the Department of Commerce and some other related trade agencies and destroy the careers of sone fine government people who have done outstanding work until frustrated by both President Bush and Mr Obama. It is sad that this foolish set of decisions went right by most media who seem only able to respond to political rhetoric about primaries.

 


 
Subscribe to O'Dwyer's website | Order O'Dwyer Publications | Advertising Info
 

Weber Shandwick