e crowd as she leaves Palais Rohan in Strasbourg, France, April 3, 2009.
The Obamas' trip to Europe marks the president's debut on the world stage, but it's his wife who has been stealing tabloid headlines.
The European reaction to the Obamas recalls the Kennedys' trip to Paris in 1961, when Jacqueline Kennedy wowed with her glamorous style and fluent French. The attention and reception the first lady received on that trip prompted the president to joke about his standing in the power couple. "I am the man who accompanies Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris," Kennedy said.
Michelle Obama has also won rave reviews from a once-skeptical public, with a recent Gallup poll giving her a 72 percent favorability rating, slightly higher than the president’s. Though detractors still occasionally pan her fashion choices or cluck prudishly over her athletic bare arms, Americans clearly have taken to their new first lady.
The triumph of Michelle Obama is a tale as surprising and as profound as the election of her husband, the nation’s first black president. The first lady is a national icon, a mirror for our changing mores, a symbol of our aspirations for wives and mothers, a role model for gracious hostesses and socially conscious volunteers.
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