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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 3, 2009 9 Nisan 5769

Cultivating her own garden

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Wonder Woman she's not. She has Wonder Woman's good biceps, as we've seen in the photographs, but she's hard to picture in red, white and blue tights and starred spangles.


Nor is she Jackie Kennedy, with Jackie's perfect taste. Jackie would never have sent those tacky plastic toy helicopters to the children of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.


Michelle has planted vegetables on the south lawn of the White House, just like Eleanor Roosevelt's World War II victory garden — and unlike Eleanor, she hasn't been accused of meddling in policy, not yet. She has overcome some of the suspicion and hostility she stirred during the campaign, particularly after she said that "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country."


If Michelle Obama is a work in progress, so are the Americans always eager to take the measure of a new first lady. Her poll numbers have risen and her negatives have declined since they were first measured last summer. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows her favorable ratings jumping to 76 percent, up 28 points since summer. Negatives have fallen, mostly because some Republicans have changed their opinion of her.


Some conservatives say they like the way she's serious about being "Mom in chief," expanding a role that includes concern for the travails of military families. She doesn't just talk about the importance of volunteer work, either, but handles the ladle at soup kitchens.


She values private spending. The Obamas are redecorating the domestic quarters at the White House with their own money, though the first family is entitled to spend $100,000 to freshen up the living quarters every four years. (When they leave they'll be entitled to the furniture, unlike the Clintons, who mixed up some of their own belongings with things that didn't belong to them when they left the White House.) She knows it's not the right time to tap taxpayers to decorate a perfectly good house while so many Americans are losing their homes. Smart thinking.


While Michelle's poll numbers climb, her husband's are just beginning to falter. Nearly half of those who don't like what he's doing in his job like what she's doing in hers. Curiously, it's our metrosexual men who prudishly titter about Michelle's clothes. Maureen Dowd plumbs the newsroom at The New York Times to learn what America is thinking and quotes her colleague David Brooks that it's time for the first lady to put away her sleeveless tops and "cover up." Says Brooks: "She's made her point. Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning."


Does a muscular woman threaten male pundits? Grandma Grundy, who in Victorian times demanded skirts for the legs of the piano, has given way to Grandpa Grumpy, who doesn't like bare arms. But fitness is about health, too: With 38 percent of black American women and 23 percent of white American women overweight and vulnerable to type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, Michelle is an example of healthy living.


"First lady" is the most vaguely defined job description in Washington. Jackie Kennedy scoffed that "first lady" sounded like the name of a saddle horse. Her husband agreed: "A man marries a woman, not a first lady." There's the rub. He runs for office, and she's compelled to go along for the ride, like it or not. From Martha to Michelle, first ladies have been adored and abhorred and every permutation between, judged first for their fashion sense.


Martha Washington dressed simply and plainly only in dresses made in America of American fabrics, boosting local markets. No outsourcing at Mount Vernon. Martha knew what Michelle knows, that what she wears influences what other women buy.


Michelle Obama follows one of the most popular first ladies. Laura Bush fused the feminine and the feminist, the mother and the librarian, stressing the importance of books for young children. She didn't have the political baggage of her predecessor, whose stormy marriage was soap opera writ large and whose personality was "in your face," whether dealing with Whitewater, "wifewater" or Hillarycare.


Michelle as first lady sends a different message, whether to poor and oft-neglected children here, or to the masses in London and Europe, where she is this week with her husband, inspiring by building on the black experience of overcoming obstacles. Maybe she arm-wrestles him about the takeovers and bailouts, but he's still the president and she's not. Nevertheless, she gets to cultivate her own garden.

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