Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni Eat Lunch at the Cool Table

Our FLOTUS has a new right-hand lady! Her name is Tina Tchen, and she is some sort of robot creature who has a giant clock trapped inside of her that prevents her from sleeping. She runs on energy obtained from the extracted body fat of obese children. She is also from Chicago, because that is the only city capable of producing shiny new staff members for the White House. But Michelle’s new chief of staff is hardly news. The real excitement comes today because our FLOTUS will have another Sexy Gossip Time with First Italian-turned-French Lady of Fashion and Song, Carla Bruni.

Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni will have lunch today, and everyone in the world is waiting on pins and needles to see what groundbreaking developments will come of their meeting, like maybe an unflattering top or the traditional debate over whose job as First Lady is more like living en enfer .

The world’s two most closely watched first ladies — Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy — will meet at the White House for lunch on Monday, a senior administration official said.

Mrs. Sarkozy’s husband, Nicolas, is planning to visit with President Obama, and their wives, who have made their share of headlines together, will eat privately, according to the official, who insisted on remaining anonymous.

What is it with these ladies? No one can even go on the record to say they are having lunch?

Careful Michelle-Carla observers will remember that their first meeting, in Strasbourg, France, in 2009, turned into a fashion face-off of sorts — at least for reporters, who were eager to deconstruct the meaning of each outfit in an attempt to figure out which first lady had smacked down the other.

It’s not a lunch between women until someone has been “smacked down.” What could Michelle and Carla even have to talk about, anyway, besides who has better shoes? The pea-sized female brain can’t do much else, or it explodes and melts into lip gloss.

Then, last year, two French journalists wrote a book in which they claimed that Mrs. Obama had told Mrs. Sarkozy that life as first lady of the United States is “hell.” Spokesmen for both first ladies denied the account.

The senior official did not have details about the purpose of the lunch or whether it was purely social. Sometimes a lunch is just a lunch.

It remains a mystery why someone would think Michelle could say such a thing. They clearly don't know our FLOTUS too well, because she wakes up every morning thanking Jesus that she doesn't have to eat a sandwich or put on a bracelet without either object undergoing some sort of interpretation. That's the FLOTUS we know and love. [ NYT ]

 Blair Burke (blairelinor@gmail.com) obsessively follows Michelle Obama's every move for "The FLOTUS Files," which appears every Monday here at your Wonkette.