When Bill Clinton was running for office, Hillary famously said, “When you vote for Bill, you get two for the price of one.” She felt that her policy prowess was an asset. Conservatives went crazy when she said that. They said that she wasn’t on the ballot and that First Ladies shouldn’t meddle. Later when Bill was in office, she seesawed between portraying herself as Hostess in Chief to Health Policy Guru. She never quite nailed her position as First Lady.
Michelle has been very vocal that her primary job is taking care of her children. But she also embraced policy and politics, especially in mom-friendly issues like food politics and health. She’s also been an asset for the president on diplomatic missions. She can lighten up dense political negotiations. There are stories about her clothes to distract the media. And she is adept at schmoozing with other diplomatic spouses.
Michelle, like other parents, is busy this month with end-of-the-school-year activities for the kids. In FP, Dan Drezner says that Michelle is forgoing a diplomatic summit with Chinese officials, because she is needed at home. Drezner thinks that this is a misstep. The Chinese officials are going to be pissed off.
I’m with Michelle on this one. The kids need her, and being a First Lady isn’t a real job. There is no salary, no job description, no official responsibilities. Being First Lady is a huge opportunity for the political entrepreneur, but it’s an optional opportunity. There are times when world politics has to be secondary to one’s family, and this is one of those times. I admire her for creating those boundaries.
Apt. 11d 
Well said.
During the early primary campaign, Michelle would often talk about worklife balance issues as an issue she might try to make some headway on as First Lady. This was muted during the general election and almost completely dropped once she actually was the First Lady. It makes me sad that they made the decision to drop the subject.
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I partially disagree. There may be no job description, but there is an Office of the First Lady in the White House with many staff members that are paid to support Michelle Obama’s work. More generally, I think it’s reasonable to want and even expect presidential partners to play certain diplomatic roles. You wrote, “There are times when world politics has to be secondary to one’s family, and this is one of those times.” I am totally on board with the first part of the sentence — “there are times when world politics has to be secondary to one’s family.” The second part of the sentence is trickier for me — “this is one of those times.” It probably is, but how do we know?
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If we were going to annoy the Chinese anyway, why couldn’t we have let the Dalai Lama use an exit from the White House not lined with garbage?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/back_door_dalai_not_so_grand_exit_MHe5umYwtJffh3pymuRIJN
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“There may be no job description, but there is an Office of the First Lady in the White House with many staff members that are paid to support Michelle Obama’s work.”
Right. If she is just a private person, she doesn’t need two dozen staffers. It might be a good idea to pare that staff size down in future, but in the world we currently live in, the office of the First Lady somehow manages to keep that many people busy. It’s been like that for a long, long time, and I think it’s natural for a quasi-official role to emerge when you consider that the First Lady literally lives in the White House and is unavoidably involved with official meetings and entertainment. You have similar situations with governors’ spouses and with pastors’ spouses.
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