The Foreigns: First Ladies GONE WILD!
Wonkette's own Nicolas Sarkozy corespondent has kept you all up to date on l'affaire Bruni , which may result in France having a supermodel/rock star/groupie first lady. Obviously this brings up an important policy-related question, keeping in mind Kissinger's dictum on power being the ultimate aphrodisiac: Who is the hottest presidential spouse?This week, we start with the top four first ladies. But don't call us sexist, just shallow! Next week we move on to the first gentlemen, assessing the field before before Bill Clinton's sad eyes and bad-boy charm blow everyone else out of the water.
GEORGIA: Sandra Roelofs
Ha ha, no, this pretty lady doesn't live in Atlanta and isn't married to balding troll-man Sonny Purdue. Turns out there's acountrycalled Georgia, and it's next to Russia some place! And Sandra is married to Mikheil Saakashvili, who came to power in the Rose Revolution a few years ago and just got re-elected. But she's not one to just stay at home knitting and making idle small talk with the first lady of Azerbaijan! She's worked at law firm, for the Georgian Red Cross, has a graduate degree in sociolinguistics, and now is even working on a nursing degree. That last one will come in handy in the presidential palace if there's ever a coup, Sandra! Anyway, I think her best feature is definitely her eyes. They're so soft and clear, and when you look into them, you can feel the weight of history that lies over her mountain country, the centuries of occupation by the Mongols and Persians and Russians, the pain under the corrupt post-Soviet dictatorship. All that's in her blood, making her the perfect choice for -- wait, she's Dutch? What? She's only lived in Georgia for the past ten years or so? Huh. Does she even count? We need to confer with our judges on this one.
SYRIA: Asma al-Assad
When you see a couple like this at, say, the Olive Garden, your first though is generally something along of the lines of "Jeez, what'shegot going for him?" Then you find out he's an ophthalmologist and you're even more puzzled -- do they make tons more than you think they do?Thenyou find out he was pulled away from his British medical studies when his older brother, the heir apparent to the Syrian presidency, died in a car accident so that he could take the reigns of the last Ba'athist dictatorship, and it sort of makes sense.
In freedom-loving U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, the leaders' wives have to cover up and be kept in strict isolation. But Asma, the First Lady of a sinister Islamofascist dictatorship, spent much of her first year in office roaming Syria in jeans and a t-shirt to find out how the common people lived. Isn't that nice? She has a degree from a British university in computer science and French lit, and has been working hard to empower Syrian women and get computers in Syrian classrooms. Then she goes home and gets into bed with a dorky ophthalmologist bloodthirsty Kurd-killing thug! The world, it's a strange place, all right.
CZECH REPUBLIC: Pavla Topolánková and Lucie Talmanová
The perky blonde on the left is Pavla Topolánková. She's married to Mirek Topolánek. Mirek is the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, which, you'd think, would give her the undisputed title of Czech First Lady, right? Well. Um. Pavla followed your typical trajectory to First Lady-dom -- work as the personal assistant to ambitious Senator, marry ambitious Senator, support Senator's bid for party leadership -- but then the relationship took a bit of a left turn. See, in 2006, when her husband was campaigning hard to get his party elected in power so he could become Prime Minister, she decided to run for Senate her own self! As a member of a party that was, well, not her husband's. Awkward!
This caused some trouble at home, and by early 2007, Topolánek was living with a lady member of parliament whowasloyal to his party -- Lucie Talmanová, that sultry-eyed brunette on the right. By July, Talmanová had had a baby, and she was being all coy about who the daddy was, but, I mean,come on.Meanwhile, Topolánek is still all officially married to his wife and stuff, which means that now the Czech Republic has a First Ladyanda First Babymomma! Both hotties! Nobody got impeached for any of this, by the way.
ETHIOPIA: Azeb Mesfin
Yeah, so that's Azeb Mesfin. She's married to Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian Prime Minister. It's hard to find pictures of her, but she's pretty! She might be prettier when she smiles, but since she spends a lot of her time doing HIV/AIDS work in the country her husband rules with an iron fist, she probably ends up looking serious or sad a lot of the time. "OK," you're probably saying, "She's a nice-looking first lady and all, but is sheworld classFirst Lady Hott?" Before you go any further with that, take a look at her husband:
I don't know, I just ... I just think there should be a handicap for this sort of thing.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia is one of those confusing countries that has both a president and a prime minister. I did a Google Image search on "Girma Wolde-Giorgis wife" (Wolde-Giorgis being said president) and look what the second image was!
ETHIOPIA: Beyoncé Knowles
Google isnever wrong,people. Beyoncé: Number one hottest first lady in the world!Sorry, Sarko, you're going to have to settle for number two.
Next week: The fellas! You gents are lucky Dennis Thatcher's dead, that's all I'm going to say.
