Frankly, I was shocked when I heard that Eunice Kennedy Shriver really died today. Sure she was 88 years old and had suffered a series of strokes this year. But I am hard pressed to name a public figure who seemed to so effectively use every waking moment of their...

If, as the West Wing correctly contends, the first 100 days of a new Administration is not an accurate gauge by which to judge a new president's abilities and success, it is a grossly unfair way to assess a First Lady. That said, only the most rigid of traditionalists or...

As far as her wearing a sleeveless dress, Michelle Obama revives a bit of a retro in posing for her first official White House photo portrait. The only other First Lady to be photographed in sleeveless clothing for their official picture was the self-defined hostess, housekeeper and wife of a...

Last week, when Michelle Obama invited several local Washington school groups to the White House for Black History Month, she used her unique podium as the first African-American First Lady to mention some of her husband's predecessors. She mentioned, for example, Lyndon Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Act in...

As Amie Parnes of Politico reports today, the President and Mrs. Obama intend to make a custom of bipartisan gatherings at weekly cocktail parties on Wednesday night. It's another example of modern appropriation of a retro modus operandi - very retro.

Not the Roosevelts, Bushes, Clintons,...

In her third trip to a federal department of the executive branch of government, First Lady Michelle Obama came to the Interior Department on Monday, February 9.

Since Interior manages Native American affairs, the First Lady was welcomed with an "honor song" by an inter-tribal drum group, the "Black...

"To what extent Mrs. Coolidge has influenced her husband's judgment only two persons many testify. One is too silent to say...and the other too smart!" -Editor William Allen White on the wife of taciturn President Calvin Coolidge

As memories of Inauguration Day 2009 begin to fade in and the...

Among the many times I had the chance to interview Hillary Clinton as First Lady, on and off the record, one remark she made still lingers with me: "Who I really am seems less important than what different groups want me to represent." It really echoed for me the week...