118 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized BiographyThis is the domineering Michelle Obama we have come to know; a supermarket tabloid story
claims that she controls everything that husband Barack does.
MICHELLE OBAMA AND CHERIE BLAIR: VULGAR, GRASPING ARRIVISTES
The British author compares Michelle to Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. The suggestion is that Michelle is the same kind of grasping, greedy, striving, social-
climbing, vulgar arriviste or nouveau riche which the British public had learned to hold in
contempt. Turning to Michelle’s thesis, she writes:
The document ...betrays an angry, campaigning brand of politics which in no way fits with the
mild-mannered advocate of common sense now winning hearts and minds from coast to coast...
There are those who, in any case, suggest that her ideological roots have always remained rather
shallow and that, for the most part of her life, politics have been overshadowed by the
straightforward business of ‘getting on’.
Even at university, Michelle was well aware that there was more to life than politics, admitting
in that same thesis that a ‘high-paying position’ could prove more attractive than a life of placards
and late-night meetings.
It was little surprise to those who knew her at the time that it was commerce not campaigning
that claimed her when she graduated with a law degree from Harvard, taking a post with Sidley
Austin, an eminent Chicago law firm. Her specialist area was not human rights or family law, but
the lucrative detail of copyright and trademark cases.
An acquaintance of Obama’s family compares her with another political wife, another lawyer as
it happens, with a keen interest in making money.
“Michelle is very much like Cherie Blair. She is a middle-class girl who has discovered that
money is nice and doesn’t see that as a contradiction with having radical beliefs,” he said.
Chicago’s veteran political consultant and pundit Joe Novak agrees, saying: “She [Michelle] is now
motivated more by personal gain than by social consciousness. She saw her opportunities, and she
took them.” (Sharon Churcher, “Mrs O.: The truth about Michelle Obama’s ‘working class’
credentials, London Daily Mail, February 23, 2008)
Sharon Churcher focuses on the affluent, opulent life style now affected by the arriviste
Michelle, who is now thoroughly addicted to the finer things in life:
The rewards have been significant. Despite the image she projects on the Newsweek cover,
Michelle owns an impressive collection of diamond jewelry, designer outfits and £400-a-pair
Jimmy Choo shoes.
When she is wooing working-class voters, however, she favours austere black skirts and white
blouses. “Our lives are so close to normal, if there is such a thing when you’re running for
president,” she declared during a campaign stop in Delaware, shortly before her husband’s
latest victories were announced.
“When I’m off the road, I’m going to Target to get the toilet paper.”
She did not bother to mention, however, that the paper, like the rest of the family shopping, is
taken to an £825,000 three-storey [c. $1.6 million] red-brick Georgian revival mansion, set
amid beautifully manicured lawns in one of Chicago’s most affluent districts.