Posted on 02/27/2009 9:47:52 PM PST by DrGop0821
I really despise Michelle Obama, maybe more than I detest her husband....your thoughts?!?!
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From Byron York:
It didn't make most of the papers or the TV newscasts, but Desiree Rogers, the new White House social secretary, caused a bit of a stir recently when she appeared at New York's Fashion Week shows, sitting next to Vogue Editor Anna Wintour as she took in the latest from designers Carolina Herrera and Donna Karan.
"The fashions were amazing," Rogers told Women's Wear Daily. "I particularly liked the dresses for daytime that were a classic silhouette. ..." Besides Herrera and Karan, Rogers also attended a show by Marc Jacobs where, according to the New York Daily News, "fashion's baddest boy paraded punky, funky ponchos and razor-sharp shouldered jackets in Day-Glo metallics."
At first, it wasn't clear whether Rogers was hanging with the fashionistas as part of her official White House duties or not. Then New York magazine quoted a White House aide saying, "Desiree was in New York on a fact-finding mission. She's acting as a cultural liaison for the White House; she's researching fashion and music."
I called the White House to check if that quote was accurate. It was. An aide explained that first lady Michelle Obama "has taken a particular interest in showcasing the work of young up-and-coming designers who have chosen fashion as their path and who are artists in their own right and who are introduced at places like Fashion Week."
It's hard to put Herrera, Karan and Jacobs in the up-and-coming category, but never mind: Perhaps we'll be seeing punky, funky ponchos and Day-Glo metallics at some future White House function. I asked whether the first lady considered Rogers' hitting the fashion shows a little frivolous, given the seriousness of our times. "I think you're assigning a value judgment to the fashion industry," I was told. "She doesn't think it is frivolous at all."
I talked to two former White House social secretaries, one Democrat and one Republican. "I don't really understand where fashion ties in with the social secretary's job," the Republican told me, "because the only fashion she needs to worry about is her own, and she has to make sure she does not eclipse the first lady.
On the other hand, the Democrat said, the fashion industry is a real industry, "a major business, and a major export business, for the United States." The first family, she continued, can "set a certain sense of style for fashion, food and wine — you try to spotlight all things that are wonderfully American and represent some of America's best industries."
The Obama White House stressed to me that Rogers did much more in New York than attend fashion shows. She had a full schedule — the aide wouldn't say exactly what it was — looking for new artists, musicians and other cultural figures who might take part in White House events.
Rogers was also treated to lunch at the chic Four Seasons by the interior decorator Michael Smith. You might have heard Smith's name because he was the man chosen by the now-departed Merrill Lynch Chief Executive Officer John Thain to handle Thain’s notorious $1.2 million office redecoration project. President Barack Obama condemned that sort of excess, but then hired none other than Michael Smith to spruce up the White House. And then Smith honored Rogers at the Four Seasons.
What makes all of this noteworthy, of course, is that it is taking place against the backdrop of widespread economic misery. As millions of Americans worry about losing their jobs, the first lady is celebrated on the cover of Wintour’s magazine, Vogue, where it is suggested that her "ardent championing of new names in American design" has caused some to call her the "new Jackie Kennedy."
Why not Nancy Reagan? Mrs. Reagan's husband also took office amid an inherited economic crisis, and she quickly became the subject of sometimes bitter criticism for her fondness for high fashion — for "exercising her opulent tastes in an economy that is inflicting hardship on so many," in the words of a 1981 New York Times article.
Now, in this economy that is inflicting hardship on so many, the first lady is celebrated for her new vision of haute couture, while her social secretary socializes with the most glamorous names in the world of fashion. Change has indeed come to Washington.
Not to worry. It’s “lipstick on a pig.”
LOL! Pricelss
The reason it’s different is because Nancy Reagan was seen as a woman of privilege who was bringing her big-spending ways to DC, while the Obamas are seen by the MSM as “black folks,” and EVERYONE knows that ALL black folks are poor, from hardscrapple backgrounds, so isn’t it great we’ve been able to give them a lavish lifestyle after all their years of suffering as blacks in America?
In other words, the MSM are racists, and it shows in their patronizing treatment of both of them.
I don’t give a damn what she wears, so long as she pays for it out of her own pocket.
Imelda Marcos, that you?
You hit it on the head darkwolf
One step closer to nuking the fridge.
This country’s FB lost me when she said, “....This is the first time in my adult life that I am proud of my country.”
I told you. She is looking. After that awful baby puke color she wore on innguration day; she should be.
They moved on up, up to the big time. To the big huge apt in DC! Yeah they moved on up right to the WH..& to the great big bird in the sky.. or words to that effect.
It has been said she adores her Jimmy Choo shoes. And those are NOT cheap by anyones stretch of imagination. Her children were carrying Prada backpacks off to school while in Chicogo. Imelda, Michellda. But does she donate them to charity....Oh forgot, she can’t deduct them cause she and the O make over 250000 a year and they fall into his eviiiill people who will be taxed to death. No Mo ChooShoo for Yuuu....
It’s more like, “Can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Say it ain’t so Joe! Jackie O would have never been caught with a toe!
I can’t stand her apparent trademark sleeveless dresses. Maybe once in awhile is ok, but all the time is bordering on tasteless IMO.
The major difference is that Nancy Reagan had taste and MO doesn’t. Nancy R. was a former actress and first-lady of the state where Hollywood style was born. She knew designers personally—and she was petit. She had heavier legs than one might expect, but she knew how to work with her figure’s problems. MO is a big, horsey woman with bow legs. She doesn’t have a consistent style but is a hodge-podge. Her inaugural dress was similar to Nancy’s—one shoulder and white. Nancy’s was elegant—MO’s looked like a bedspread. Most of all, Nancy was appropriate. Mrs. Obama hasn’t worn anything that wasn’t sleeveless. Great—I’m glad she’s got great arms, but not every event demands a patio party dress, especially in the middle of the winter.
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