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Michelle's Time to Shine
Natalina Kolesnikova, AFP / Getty Images
A Warhol time capsule, locally sourced menus, a jazz trio—Michelle Obama’s been planning for months for the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, her first international meet-and-greet on home soil. Sandra McElwaine has all the details.
When the Group of 20 summit kicks off in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Michelle Obama will be front and center as hostess extraordinaire. It is her first major international meet-and-greet in the U.S. and her moment to shine. Preparations for the extravaganza have been whispered, written about, and rehearsed for months. The Bridge City was picked as the venue because the sooty steel mill town has totally reinvented itself—according to the president, it is a “world-class” town “that has transformed itself, after some very tough times, into a city that’s competing in the world economy.”
A former deputy chief of protocol says that no matter how dire the circumstance or glitch, you simply press on. “You just pedal through like mad,” she says. “You cover, cover, cover, and smile, smile, smile.”
In a situation fraught with endless possibilities for things to go wrong, the protocol office has been working 24/7. Every motorcade has been timed to the minute, the roads are prepared for gridlock, the airport is geared for 35 to 45 private planes to land and take off, and credentials have been scrutinized and distributed—yet somehow, bathrooms have become the buzz du jour.
“That’s the word around town,” says a well-placed denizen “The Secret Service is worried that there aren’t enough bathrooms for all these heads of state and their entourage.”
• More Daily Beast G-20 coverage
• Gallery: First Lady Face-Off Events, which have been carefully calibrated to showcase Michelle’s interest in the arts, environment, education, and architecture, start Thursday night, when the first couple welcomes leaders and their spouses to an elegant reception in the landmark Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, A gift to the city from steel magnate Henry Phipps in 1893, the glass-and-metal Victorian structure has been added to and expanded and is known as the “green heart of Pittsburgh.”
The president and his counterparts will stay on for a working dinner to deal with the global financial turmoil and promote economic stability, while Michelle launches the well-orchestrated two-day spousal program at Rosemont Farm, the pastoral home of Teresa Heinz, a leading environmentalist and philanthropist and the wife Senator John Kerry. A 25-minute drive from downtown in verdant Fox Chapel, Rosemont is a working farm with a old barn, flower and vegetable gardens, chickens and cows, and an occasional sheep grazing in nearby fields.
In the back of the house, with a view over the hills, a flower-filled tent with festive lights will seat the 18 wives of the G-20 heads of state. Two male spouses have declined to attend: Joachim Sauer, husband of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a quantum chemist who eschews publicity and stayed home; and Nestor Kirchner, former president of Argentina, who tagged along with his wife, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, but made dinner plans of his own.
The Pittsburgh Philharmonic Orchestra’s Jazz Trio will be on hand to provide music throughout the evening.
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Gee I hope she exposes those arms, that will do the trick Ya think?
Yeah, I do think. Apparently you don't.
Gee, you exposed what an ass you are...and I wasn't even tricked.
Give it a rest... You are all just so much noise... You try to be , what, clever??? you need to know first what that word means.
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I like Michelle. She has good sense and I respect her more as time goes on.
She seems genuine..more so than other First Ladies.
Thank you.
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