Will Smith Playing Barack Obama Is A No Brainer!

Hollywood film star Will Smith has staked his claim to play Barack Obama in a movie about his rise to become US President and America’s first black leader. And personally, we know Keri Washington wants to play Michelle baaaadly, but our vote is Kimberly Elise -- hands down!

Smith has staked his claim to play the role, even before Barack Obama has been inaugurated as president.

Speaking at the premiere of his new film Seven Pounds at the Empire, Leicester Square, in London, Smith laughed about reports that the US President-elect had indicated that he would like the actor to play him if his life story were ever to be made into a movie.

“If I am ordered by my commander in chief to star in a film about him, I will do my duty as an American," he said, beaming.

Smith, best known for the Men in Black films and Independence Day, says however that he had no desire to move into the White House for real.

"If we were in the White House I don't know if that would exactly be a good thing. The Obamas are much more prepared to be in the White House than the Smiths.

"It's a whole lot more fun to be a movie star. That's a difficult job being President with a whole lot of lives on the line with every decision you make. In my job I just bring joy. I don't bring bad news. I think I'll stay in my position for quite some time." Smith said the “world had changed forever” with the election of Barack Obama.

He said he would be an "eyewitness to history" when he attends the impending inauguration of US President-elect Barack Obama.

Source

Obama Girls Start That Awkward New Kids At School Thing Today!

Today, Michelle Obama accompanied daughters Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10, to Sidwell Friends school Monday morning while dad did his whole president-elect thing. Sasha is attending classes at the Bethesda, Md., elementary-school campus, where she is in second grade. Malia is in fifth grade at the middle school campus in the District of Columbia.

Sidwell is a private Quaker school. The campus in northwest Washington has grades 5-12 and the Bethesda campus is for kindergarten through fourth grade. Wonder how many black children attend that school?

Sasha (clearly the character in the family) carried a Trans by JanSport pink, magenta and gray backpack and wore bluejeans and a brown jacket with a hood and her hair was pulled into two braided ponytails.Mama bear wore a long maroon overcoat, cinched at the waist, and slate gray pants.

Security was relatively low key. But there were reports that after dropping the kids off, Michelle was planning to track down Ann Coulter (see below post) and give him a much needed beatdown behing the exclusive campus around three o'clock!

Source

Quickie: Ghetto Fabulous Barack And Michelle Obama Nails!

DISCUSS....

HILARIOUS! Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David Can Feel Erin Aubry Kaplan's Pain!

Never Mind The First Lady, Larry Is Accused of Being An Ass Man!

EXCLUSIVE!!! "First Lady's Got Back" Author Comes Clean On Why She REALLY Wrote About Michelle Obama's Butt on Salon.com

Breaking the Silence

by Erin Aubry Kaplan

When all is said and done—and written—I really want just want to be popular in high school. I want to be liked, and better than that, understood.

People call my pieces controversial sometimes, but the boring truth is that I write because I want to resonate, not provoke.

I want to increase community, not sit alone atop some mountain of racial aloofness or pissed-off prophecy, gloating at the mess I stirred down below. No. To me, whatever I write about, I’m always saying the same thing to readers who I assume are my fellow travelers: Isn’t this wonderful/awful? Isn’t life glorious/a bitch? Don’t you wish things were more like this/different?

That was my frame of mind when I wrote a much-maligned piece last week for Salon.com about Michelle Obama’s butt. Well, it wasn’t really about her butt (though that was a lively starting point, for sure), it was about the psychological impact of having a First Lady who is black and, for the first time in history, who looks like me.

It was about a flesh-and-blood physical representation and affirmation that black women, and black people, have never, ever had before. It was about the American social register being turned upside down and blacks being suddenly at the top of the page instead of stuck at the bottom, or stuck wherever people want us stuck.

Lastly, but most importantly, it was about black people holding up long-debased ideas about ourselves—starting with physical ideas--to the light and saying: I’m not so bad. In fact, I’m great.

Ultimately, my piece was about removing the lens of white scrutiny and approval from the black gaze and seeing what lies underneath. Sure, there’s a lot of insecurity that’s built up over hundreds of years, but there’s also a lot of satisfaction that never had the chance to express itself. The Obamas have given us that chance. (I don’t know about you, but I always liked my butt, but never felt comfortable in saying so. Now, as you might have read, I’m saying so.)

It’s more than ironic that so many critics—many of them black-- bashed me for “perpetuating stereotypes” and “reducing” black women to “objects.” In affirming myself, I was doing exactly the opposite.

Are we all so addled by mainstream validation that we don’t see the difference between whites perpetuating exaggerated ideas of us, and us embracing something about ourselves that we like, that makes us attractive or unique?

I submit that, sadly, black folk simply don’t have a public context in which to talk about ourselves. In public discussions, we fall between two extremes: either we’re “reduced” to impersonal statistics or blown up as cartoon characters a la BET. There’s little in between. Whenever a unfamiliar take pops up, like mine, we tend to panic and hide behind well-worn positions. (Since the piece was published, I’ve been accused of being both an out-of-touch academic and an evil agent of BET and/or the white corporate media. Go figure.)

I know the black image wars very well. I’ve tracked them. I’ve written impassioned commentaries about them. I’ve been an advocate for black people and for justice of all kinds. But I see myself as a living, breathing character in all these scenarios, not a detached observer.

This stuff matters terribly to me.

I’ve actually written extensively about the butt before, namely in a 5,000-word essay I did for the LA Weekly back in 1997 called “The Butt: Its Politics, Its Profanity, Its Power.” That pretty much says it all. Of course, few were offended because I was mostly talking about myself, not the First Lady-to-be.

It seems to me that in the new era of Obama we already have a profound paradox: we are policing black images more than before, which means there’s now less room for discussions of race. Not unless it’s all positive and worthy of our new commander-in-chief.

Not only is that dishonest and ahistorical, it’s dull. People scolded me for trying to be funny. If we can’t be funny now—with a serious underside, of course—when can we?

I’m not a fool. Put race and sex together in any way, shape or form, intentionally or not, and you get a genuine American meltdown; all of us lose our minds, not just black folk. I didn’t expect a whole lot of warm fuzzies on this one, but I did expect some nods, however grudging, from my fellow travelers. I got some, for sure. But I want more. I need more.

I may not ever be class president. But I’m still going for cheerleader.

ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and on the blog 3 Brothers and A Sister. Among her many projects, Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book.

Doing The Butt: Michelle Obama Works That Backside!

Finally, A First Lady That Looks Like Me!

by Erin Aubry Kaplan

Free at last. I never thought that I -- a black girl who came of age in the utterly anticlimactic aftermath of the civil rights movement -- would say the phrase with any real sincerity in my lifetime. But ever since Nov. 4, I've been shouting it from every rooftop. I'm not excited for the most obvious reason.

Yes, Obama's win was an extraordinary breakthrough and a huge relief, but I don't subscribe to the notion that his capturing the White House represents the end of American racial history. Far from it. There is a certain freedom in the moment -- as in, we are all now free from wondering when or if we'll ever get a black president. Congratulations to all of us for being around to settle the question.

But what really thrills me, what really feels liberating in a very personal way, is the official new prominence of Michelle Obama.

Barack's better half not only has stature but is statuesque. She has coruscating intelligence, beauty, style and -- drumroll, please -- a butt. (Yes, you read that right: I'm going to talk about the first lady's butt.)

What a bonus! From the ocean of nastiness and confusion that defined this campaign from the beginning, Michelle rose up like Venus on the waves, keeping her coif above water and cruising the coattails of history to present us with a brand-new beauty norm before we knew it was even happening.

Actually, it took me and a lot of other similarly configured black women by surprise. So anxious and indignant were we about Michelle getting attacked for saying anything about America that conservatives could turn into mud, we hardly looked south of her neck. I noted her business suits and the fact she hardly ever wore pants (unlike Hillary).

As I gradually relaxed, as Michelle strode onto more stages and people started focusing on her clothes and presence instead of her patriotism, it dawned on me -- good God, she has a butt! "Obama’s baby (mama) got back," wrote one feminist blogger. "OMG, her butt is humongous!" went a typical comment on one African-American online forum, and while it isn't humongous, per se, it is a solid, round, black, class-A boo-tay.

Try as Michelle might to cover it with those Mamie Eisenhower skirts and sheath dresses meant to reassure mainstream voters, the butt would not be denied.

As America fretted about Obama's exoticism and he sought to calm the waters with speeches about unity and common experience, Michelle's body was sending a different message: To hell with biracialism! Compromise, bipartisanship? Don't think so. Here was one clear signifier of blackness that couldn't be tamed, muted or otherwise made invisible. It emerged right before our eyes, in the midst of our growing uncertainty about everything, and we were too bogged down in the daily campaign madness to notice.

The one clear predictor of success that the pundits, despite all their fancy maps, charts and holograms, missed completely? Michelle's butt.

Lord knows, it's time the butt got some respect. Ever since slavery, it's been both vilified and fetishized as the most singular of all black female features, more unsettling than dark skin and full lips, the thing that marked black women as uncouth and not quite ready for civilization (of course, it also made them mighty attractive to white men, which further stoked fears of miscegenation that lay at the heart of legal and social segregation).

In modern times, the butt has demarcated class and stature among black society itself. Emphasizing it or not separates dignified black women from ho's, party girls from professionals, hip-hop from serious. (Black women are not the only ones with protruding behinds, by the way, but they're certainly considered its source. How many gluteally endowed nonblack women have been derided for having a black ass? Well, Hillary, for one.

But Michelle is bringing those two falsely divided minds together in a single presentation -- finally, unity for the real world! Talk about a power base. Thanks to Michelle, looking professional and provocative in a distinctly black way will become not only acceptable but also part of a whole presidential look that's more, well, inclusive.

Now we'll all be able to wear leggings to board meetings; we'll sport pencil skirts sans the long jackets meant to cover the offending rear at big conferences where we have to make a good impression. It turns out that Sir Mix-A-Lot, he of "Baby Got Back" fame, was not a novelty but a prophet.

Who knew? Give that guy a Cabinet post. Wait, there's more...

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Opinion. She is a former weekly columnist for The Times, Essence and LA Weekly and blogs for 3 Brothers and A Sister.

Black Women In The News: Marion Jones, Michelle Obama, and Jennifer Hudson

Michelle Obama Charms "The Tonight Show" Audience
Detroit's Ex-Mayor Kilpatrick Jailed for 4 Months
Stars Speak Out About the Hudson Tragedy
Hudson Suspect Could Have Had Parole Revoked
ABC Only Major TV Network Not Airing Obama Infomercial
Teen Shot Over Vandalized McCain Sign
Korto Momolu Makes It Work After "Runway"

Marion Jones Gives Oprah First Post-Prison Interview

African American Golf Documentary Planned
Common Misses Fatal Shooting by Hours
Panel: Maryland's Black Universities Need Funds

How Did D.L. Hughley Really Do on CNN?

Ethiopia Receives Africa's Largest Wind Farm

Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union Returns to LA

Michelle Robinson Obama: I Come Here As A Sister... With Nails Done And My Hair Looking Fierce!!!

For The Girl from South Chicago, The American Dream Endures

Okay, the older white women in the audience with all the tears at the Denver Democratic National Convention were killing me. And the two cute daughters Sasha and Malia made America face the reality of what's happening in this country. As the group Klymaxx sang back in the day, "There's a Meeting In The Ladies Room."

And the verdict? Black folks are just like everyone else. We deserve that big White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue just like every other family who has occupied it, and Michelle and Barack Obama are the real deal. And I'm a Republican!

Speech excerpts:

Barack and I were raised similar. We were taught that your word is your bond, treat people with dignity and respect. Barack and I set to build our lives under these set of principles.

We understand that ordinary folks are trying to get by paycheck to paycheck. They're not asking for a handout. We believed that you could make it in America if you try.

Barack Obama feels that we should see the world not as it is but as it should be. Barack Obama reminds us of what the world should look like, because we need to find the strength within ourselves.

Other people have marched, refusing to settle all the while. Because of their will and courage, we celebrate 88 years of a women's right to vote, and the 40 year anniversary of King's dream.

Michelle Obama, Fashion Icon?

I honestly feel we are standing at the cross-current of history. Despite my political differences with Barack, I can not check any box other than that which says Obama. This is not about partisan politics. This is about history, about hope, about changing perceptions, about my two sons who will only understand what this moment truly means when they are fathers.

Sure folks are ticked about Hillary. And Michelle addressed that with grace. That comment about Clinton making 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling who helped little girls and boys see that the future is bright said it all.

We are alike more than you think. The thread that connects us is our children's future and the willingness to work together.

In the end, BO is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago.

Listening to hopes and dreams, instead of fears Michelle Obama nailed it. The dress, the jewelry, the poise, the delivery. Outstanding!

What a tribute to her father's past and her daughters future. You the man Barack. And your women makes you look good black man.

Michelle Obama's Closeup Tonight: A Black Woman As First Lady? You Go Grrrrl!!!!

All Eyes on Michelle as Dems Open Convention

Symbolism in Obama Acceptance on 'Dream' Anniversary
Obama Leads McCain by 49% to 43% in Post-ABC Poll
Union Officials Worry Racism in the Ranks is Hurting Obama
Clinton Likely to Release Her Delegates to Obama
Maxwell Returns to Concert Stage
Jamaican Students to Be Searched at School
Somalia’s Olympic Runners Provide Inspiration

Trip To Denver A No-Go For Mayor Kwame

Hip-hop CD Goes to Bat for Negro Leagues Museum
In Kenya Slum, Sun and Sewage Equals Progress
How Ice Cube, N.W.A Made History Straight Outta Compton

Robert Downey In Blackface Takes #1 Spot Again At The Box

Remembering Singer Aaliyah, 7Years Later
Jailed Rapper DMX Wants A Big Mac/ And A TV Show
Sudanese Forces Attack Darfur Refugee Camp

OUR 3BAAS AUDIENCE WEIGHS IN ON MICHELLE OBAMA AND JESSE JACKSON

Your Thoughts About Michelle Obama:

Like Her (25%)

Love Her! (53%)

Indifferent (3%)

Not Feeling Her, At All!!! (17%)

What folks had to say about Reverend Jackson, under the hood.

Are You Through With Jesse Jackson?

Completely! (46%)

I Still Have Some Love & Respect (22%)

No, He's Telling The Truth About Barack (13%)

Crabs In The Barrel - SMH!!! (17%)


Thanks for voting family!

The Obama's Magazine Cover Flap: From A Black Woman Who Actually Reads The New Yorker

Laughing & Other Matters

By Erin Aubry Kaplan

A disclaimer: unlike many people who are fretting about the current New Yorker cover of Barack and Michelle Obama as a militant couple-in-chief , I read the New Yorker.

I’ve had a subscription for a good ten years. I have a huge, coffee-table collection of its cartoons and anticipate its satirical or, at the very least, tongue-in-cheek cover art every other week like some people anticipate crossword puzzles on Sunday.

I like the art because it often has more barb than the pieces inside, which are usually substantive and informative, but which have an emotional restraint that often feels gimmicky and makes me impatient.

By contrast, the New Yorker art holds nothing back; it speaks loudly and immediately. And its intent is to be wicked without being savage, a rare sensibility in this era of media crudeness that considers Bill O’Reilly a newsman and deliberately confuses truth-telling with insult.

This Obama cover-- caricatures of Barack as a Muslim and Michelle as a mushroom-Afro’d, gun-toting solider in arms—is true to form. It is wicked.

In typical New Yorker fashion, it mocks not the Obamas, but the public hysteria surrounding their political ascension that ranges from stubborn accusations that Barack is a Muslim to speculation that Michelle is a closet black nationalist.

It trashes racism and intolerance, with a flag burning in the quaint fireplace to boot. I got it. But after I got it, I got worried. I looked over my shoulder and wondered what the rest of the world would make of such a purposeful exaggeration of not simply two black people, but two black people on the brink of a historical breakthrough in the American power structure.

Controversy Adds To Magazine's Ad Woes

And I knew many of my fellow Americans would see the picture not as an exaggeration at all, but as an imminent truth: This is what could happen if you let the wrong kind of people in the White House. I don’t believe for a moment this was the New Yorker’s thinking, but the unnerving fact is that Karl Rove couldn’t devise a Swift-boat ad more effective (he or an acolyte is probably working on something very similar right now). Yes, I got very worried indeed.

But my concern has nothing to do with a lack of humor or sophistication, as many New Yorker supporters and pundits have theorized with more than a soupcon of elitism.

My concern is actually far more sophisticated than that, rooted in what W.E.B. DuBois called the “double consciousness.” Like every other African American, I know that all black images—whether they appear in the New Yorker or the Source or on BET—tend to be read literally, not metaphorically.

They tend to confirm the mainstream’s many preconceived fears about black people as outsiders or criminals or in any case, people unworthy or incapable of regular American life. Think of the so-called black memorabilia that was a pillar of American advertising for so long—grotesque and grinning Aunt Jemimas, Uncle Bens, Gold Dust Twins, big-lipped pickaninnies tucking into watermelons.

There was something sinister even in black images meant to be utterly harmless. It’s therefore not at all surprising that as the Obamas become powerful in an unprecedented way, they become threatening in an equally unprecedented way, with critics seeking to expose the sinister qualities or unworthiness they are sure are lurking just beneath the smiling facades of Barack and his wife.

Even with tremendous support, the couple has little to no context to work with when it comes to media images because that’s historically been the case: Whites create and control black images and blacks bear the fallout.

We can laugh at the images and applaud good satire, but, as my brother says, in the bigger picture it just ain’t funny.

Not yet.

Though let’s face it, these are very unfunny times for Americans, especially black Americans. We’ve lost our humor and have become seriously irony-deficient because we’ve lost economic ground, civil rights, standing in the world, lives in a war we can’t justify.

To make things even more precarious, we’re trying to elect a black man as president after decades of conservatism that’s been openly hostile to the very idea of racial progress past 1970 or so.

The New Yorker cover illustrated brilliantly and urgently what we seem to be done saying in words. I just hope people see that.

ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN, a contributing blogger with 3BAAS Media Group, is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and a host of other publications. Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book.

OBAMA, THE NEW YORKER & TASTELESS SATIRE

SMH!!!!!

What if Senator John McCain was shown in the form of a "political cartoon" turning his back and smirking on his first wife as a cripple after she suffered a car accident while reaching for 20-something bombshell Cindy McCain?

Or what if Cindy McCain was shown drunk while popping pills as she hung from the rafters of her Budweiser distributorship as an angry John McCain looked on shouting expletives for her to get down. Something tells me there would be a backlash of hell to pay - as well there should be.


The cover of the New Yorker this week is highly tasteless and unnecessary - unless one is trying to contribute to the downfall of a candidate in an election.

It is my understanding that the New Yorker is typically a liberal magazine.

Whatever.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Obama campaign for president is a metaphor for life. One could easily argue that most presidential campaigns are.

However, I must ask the question: If anyone - who is not Black chose to run for president - would they like to do it as a Black man?

For more visit Diary of a Content Black Woman.

BLACK WOMEN COME TO THE DEFENSE OF MICHELLE OBAMA

Cal Thomas said on Fox News last week that black women on television "are usually angry about something," and singled out Michelle Obama, who also has made the cover of National Review as an angry "Mrs. Grievance," and been referred to by Michelle Malkin as her husband's "bitter half."

With the predominantly white feminist movement still smarting about the loss of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, black women have risen to Mrs. Obama's defense.

E. Faye Williams, national chairwoman of the National Congress of Black Women, is among the commentators speaking out. In her weekly syndicated column, she asks, "Since when did the right wing become frightened of black women?"

"They've always entrusted black women to cook their food and to run their households. Some even considered black women to be their confidantes. So, how did they become afraid of us in the person of Michelle Obama?" Ms. Williams said. "Lay off Michelle Obama."

For more, visit The Washington Times.

Public Cool To Sistergirl Michelle, Doesn't Know Cindy's "Baggage"

The public hasn't taken to Michelle Obama yet, especially whites. And it's got a question about Cindy McCain: Who is she?

People are divided over whether they like the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, with 30 percent seeing her favorably and 35 percent unfavorably, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Wednesday.

They tilt positively toward the spouse of Republican hopeful John McCain, by 27 percent to 17 percent.

In other words: While the two women are about equally liked, Michelle Obama is twice as disliked as Cindy McCain.

"Cindy seems like she's laid back and not trying to run her husband," said Linda Kaiser, 60, a Republican and church secretary from Clairton, Pa. "It's nice to have a brain, but they should let their husband be president."

Whites have an unfavorable view of Michelle Obama by 18 percentage points, while eight in 10 blacks like her. That is reminiscent of how Barack Obama fared in the Democratic primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In the AP-Yahoo News poll, whites saw Cindy McCain positively by 17 points, while one in eight blacks like her.

Michelle Obama does better with unmarried people and college graduates but is viewed poorly by people age 65 and up. Cindy McCain is seen more favorably by older people, those who are married and the more affluent, but she is less well-received by singles.

Cindy McCain is also more of a mystery. Nearly six in 10, or 56 percent, said they know too little to say much about her — exceeding the 34 percent clueless about Michelle Obama. Half of Republicans say they don't know Cindy McCain, while three in 10 Democrats say that about Michelle Obama.

Barack Obama's wife seems to incite stronger feelings. One in five had very negative views of her, triple the number who said so about John McCain's wife. One in 10 had very favorable views of Michelle Obama, double Cindy McCain's number. (AP)

My Kindred Spirit, AKA Barack Obama's Uncompromisingly Black Wife

Who's afraid of Michelle Obama?

By Erin Aubry Kaplan

The flap about the potential first lady's "image problem" proves how uncomfortable the country feels about a shift in racial dynamics. But as far as I'm concerned, I've found a kindred spirit.

As Barack Obama moved through the maelstrom of the primary season, I held my breath, along with much of black America. My fear increased in proportion to my exhilaration, at times outpacing it.

What would a country that had criminalized blackness for 350 years do when it woke up and realized it was seriously supporting a black man for president? I tracked the bad signs big and small, from the Jeremiah Wright crisis to reports that Obama's young campaign workers were getting shellshocked by racism in Pennsylvania.

Obama Inspires Versace Fashion Line

I kept my eye on the ball with an obsession fueled by a half-sensible, half-quixotic belief that if I and other concerned citizens were vigilant, we could identify any racial slime at its source and contain it before it spread into a national, nonsensical conversation.

The goal was not to keep Obama in a bubble, or even to get everybody in his camp -- this is a presidential election, after all -- just to allow a historic campaign to go forward as unimpeded as possible by scurrilous attacks rooted in his color.

But it turns out, I was looking the wrong way. Because increasingly the racial animus has been aimed not at Barack but at his wife, Michelle Obama.

I should have seen this coming. It was established early that while Barack was striving for the middle ground, trying to strike a balance between strength and inoffensiveness, Michelle was the loose cannon who didn't bother to hide her identity or racial concerns.

In the matter of blackness, she was the id to his superego. And unlike Barack, she was a typical black American with no transcendent story about immigrant parents and being raised in exotic locales; she had the black Everywoman name of Michelle Robinson.

She grew up on Chicago's ethnically isolated South Side -- wasn't poor but was hardly rich, was raised with a keen awareness of racial barriers but was also raised to achieve. She went to Princeton, excelled, retained her racial conscience but also eventually commanded a six-figure salary. All of this confuses white people mightily, far more than Barack's biracial status.

In their frame of reference, Michelle has no reason to be angry and every reason to be content.

Portrayed by the media as extraordinary, Michelle at heart is an ordinary black woman whose life experience and ambiguity about making it in white America resemble those of every other 40ish, middle-class black woman I know.

This is wonderful news for us -- we finally see an accurate reflection of ourselves in someone who may one day occupy the most exclusive address in the country. But for a good part of the nation, this is exactly the problem. Michelle's frankness about the ills of America and how they're connected to race taps into an anxiety about such a story becoming prominent and representing us all. Like so much about the whole Obama phenomenon, this has never happened. The black story has always...

Story continues over at Salon.com

ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and a host of other publications. Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book, to be released in 2009.

Your Thoughts On Michelle Obama's "The View" Appearance?

TELEVISION WATCH: MICHELLE OBAMA ON "THE VIEW" TODAY

US Magazine, The First Weekly Celeb Publication
to Feature "The First Couple"

Set the TIVO and VCR (yes some of us still have them), Soul Sistah #1' soon to be the "First Soul Lady", Michelle Obama, will be "co-hosting" (not a guest), on today's THE VIEW.

Her appearance on a popular women's daytime television program coincides with subtle attempts by the Obama campaign to soften her image and combat efforts by some conservatives and critics to paint her as an unpatriotic, angry, black woman. Check out her US Magazine spread.

Obama, 44, would become the nation's first African American first lady if her husband wins the White House in November, and one of the youngest since Jackie Kennedy. And just as beautiful. Oh gosh, I think I'm blushing! Gotta' Go.

Michelle Obama Gets Off The Hook As New Web Site Destroys Rumors

Did She Say "Whitey" or "Why Did He?"

Did Barack Obama really refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag? Is his grandmother a witch doctor in Africa? Who was Michelle Obama calling "whitey". I heard it all and I know it must be true because Rush Limbaugh said so. Well not quite and to set the record straight the Obama camp set up Fight The Smears. On the site Obama's aides wrote out and deconstructed five of the nastiest rumors, one by one. It will be updated as the campaign and rumors continue.

Michelle Obama has been the target of several conservative attacks. Many came from her comment that the Obama campaign has made her proud of her country "for the first time," a remark that inspired a Tennessee Republican Party Web video questioning her patriotism. Other insulting attacks, not limited to the Internet, have emerged.

Fox News Channel referred to her as "Obama's baby mama" in a graphic Wednesday, using the slang description of a woman who has a baby outside of a romantic relationship or marriage. Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming at Fox, said in a statement that a producer "exercised poor judgment." The producer was not fired, and no disciplinary action was announced.

Fox News anchor E.D. Hill earlier referred to a "terrorist fist jab" when the Obamas bumped knuckles on the night he clinched the nomination. Hill has apologized.

Chicago Tribune and AP has more of this ugly stuff if you click here

GOP Attacks Michelle Obama, Losing Women And The Black Vote

Michelle Malkin, the rabid conservative blogger desperately in need of Ritalin, called her "Obama's bitter half." On a recent National Review cover, a photo of a fierce-looking Michelle Obama had "Mrs. Grievance" scrawled across. The magazine's online edition titled an essay about her stump speech "America's Unhappiest Millionaire."

E.D. Hill, the Fox anchor currently in hiding for elevating stupidity to a new level, said that the celebrated fist pump between Michelle and her husband the night he snagged the nomination could be called a “terrorist fist jab.”

Damn, in this bar-knuckle race to the White House, a sistah can't even give her man some dap?

It’s good news for Obama that Hillary Rodham Clinton is FINALLY out of the race. But it’s also bad news. According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Republicans can now turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of “Kill the witch.”

How can this south-side Chicago chick, despite graduating from Princeton and Harvard Law School, possibly share American values? She's the female version of Jeremiah Wright, an angry black woman, the disgruntled Angela Davis with her afro blazing, denouncing “whitey.”

Even the relatively liberal online magazine Slate piled on. In a piece subtitled "Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?" the contrarian Christopher Hitchens blamed her for her husband's pastor troubles since she was a member of the church first.

The would-be first lady does not make pronouncements about policy and has insisted that her priority in the White House would be her two young daughters. But Obama has an earthy sense of humor that sometimes gets her in trouble.

It was an unscripted remark as she spoke in February about the enthusiastic response to his message of hope that set off conservatives: "And let me tell you something," she told a Wisconsin crowd. "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country."

The Obama campaign clarified her remarks right away but conservatives pressed the attack. John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, wrote that she had inadvertently revealed "the pseudo-messianic nature of the Obama candidacy."

The issue has shown no signs of going away. Even as Barack's national polls numbers reflect women are supporting his campaign 51% to McCain's 38%, an 8-point rise since Hillary Clinton suspended her historic campaign. Given that African American women really define the Black vote, this strategy is fatally flawed and will draw more votes away from the Republican Party.

In what could be seen as a test run for future attacks, the Tennessee Republican Party last month posted a Web video crosscutting her gaffe with declarations from average folks about how they've always been proud of their country.

A few days later, the candidate took umbrage. "These folks should lay off my wife," said Sen. Barack Obama, as she sat beside him on ABC's "Good Morning America." On June 18, she returns to ABC, this time as a guest host on the gabfest "The View."

But it she fair game? Most agree that the 44-year-old wife and mother of two infectious girls will not be immuned. Michelle Obama's antagonists ignore her when she says: "We have overcome so much in this country: racism, sexism, civil wars."

Instead, they focus on: "Life for regular folks has gotten worse over the course of my lifetime." Or: "Our souls are broken. . . . The problem is us." Or: "We're too cynical. And we are still a nation that is too mean -- just downright mean to one another. We don't talk to each other in civil tones."

"This is a huge debate among Republicans," said Malkin, who noted that until Obama's "proud" remark, "she was the new, glamorous Jackie O, and most stories focused on her pearls and wardrobe." But, Malkin added, "from what I've seen, despite her husband's admonition to lay off of her, she's not stopping what she's doing, and I don't think the rest of us should ignore her and treat her with kid gloves."

As Dowd correctly noted, when she’s on her game, after all, Michelle is a knockout. And as one Obama booster enthuses: “Michelle’s story is a lot more mainstream American than Cindy McCain inheriting a brewery.”

But the Obama campaign is preparing for the worst, planning to shore up Michelle with her own slick and quick war room staffed by top operatives from previous campaigns.

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