Throughout the history of American journalism, reporters have upheld one vital standard: asking the tough questions and holding to account the most powerful person in the nation, which is to say, the First Lady. But is our national legacy of unbiased investigative East Wing reporting suddenly in peril because some black gals are writing about Michelle Obama? MORE »

BARBARA BUSH HAS SUCCESSFUL HEART SURGERY: Former first lady (and a Pierce by birth, never you forget) Barbara Bush underwent what the cretins call “open heart surgery” earlier today. Doctors successfully removed the Jameson bottle and now she’s… oops, wrong Kennedy. You only heard about this news tonight because it would have been very uncouth to alert the public to this embarrassing affair earlier in the day. Oh, puddingsticks. [CNN]

The latest proof that George W. Bush is gone and Barack Obama is president and we didn’t all just imagine this, on drugs, is this new official White House portrait of first lady Michelle Obama. And CNN, our nation’s teevee news channel, has stories like this one: “How to get Michelle Obama’s toned arms.” Please gaze upon this official portrait respectfully, hands up where we can see them, as she is the first lady. [White House]

Get ready for the softer, whiter side of Michelle Obama! According to somebody at the New York Times who leaked it to Drudge Report, Barack’s fancy corporate wife is getting a “subtle makeover” that will finally make right-wing nuts put aside racism and sexism so they can metaphorically embrace their new first lady, who represents everything they so deeply resent in life: intelligence, wealth, style, liberalism and especially the “being female” and “being black” parts. UPDATE: Oh here it is. MORE »

Three British cheers to the Guardian for reading millions of newly released pages of Hillary Clinton’s First Lady schedules. They’ve excavated the first few morsels of hilarity in what’s guaranteed to be a goldmine:

On the day that dozens of US cruise missiles rained down on Serbia in an attempt to punish Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for the country’s onslaught against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, first lady Hillary Clinton was far from the White House war room: instead she was touring ancient Egyptian ruins, including King Tut’s tomb and the temple of Hatshepsut. And on the day before the signing of the Good Friday agreement in Belfast she was at an event called “Hats on for Bella” in Washington.

Maybe when she says “I’m running for president” she’s also lying; she’s actually been touring the Grand Canyon for the last 14 months. [Guardian]

HILLARY TO RELEASE FIRST LADY BUSINESS: Ooh look, Hillary Clinton is taking one small step in the name of Transparency! Tomorrow, the National Archives will finally release her First Lady schedules. Hey, it’s not tax returns, but we don’t want to get all “Ken Starr” and push too hard. [Marc Ambinder]

Hillary Clinton is dying. Not literally, but on some sort of quasi-micro-day-to-day level, her campaign is completely ruined forever and eternally! Between a new Zogby poll that shows her losing to every major Republican candidate in hypothetical matchups and Obama calling her White House experience complete poppycock, Hillary is a saaaaad wittle panda today. MORE »

The following presentation about tits was written by the Anonymous Tit-Watcher, who is also the Anonymous Lobbyist. Enjoy!

There are few people as obsessed with my tits (and their socio-political meaning) as I am, other than my exes and a few of my readers, so perhaps it stands to reason that I have become intrigued by the range of boobs among the potential First Ladies — and what they could mean for their husbands’ candidacies. To put that in to context, I spent much of yesterday examining the breasts of their predecessors to see what America really wants out of the knockers of the wife of the Commander-in-Chief. My findings, with an accompanying photo gallery (!), after the jump. MORE »

According to one of the non-Prince Charles guys who humped her back when she was still alive, the delusional Princess Diana wasn’t satisfied being, you know, a member of the British Royal Family and the eventual Queen of the whole freakin’ kingdom. MORE »