Michelle, should I hula hoop on the South Lawn?

Eleanore: you go girl! Hula Hoop, Jump Rope and Hopscotch!

you can have it all! Yes, you can!

Cool stuff, Julie - ! Michelle Obama needs this article more than I do, though!

What an intriguing concept! What skill! Hope Michelle reads it!

What a creative piece! I enjoyed getting a glimpse at Eleanor's view of her role as first lady -- some great advice for Michelle! Hope someone alerts her to read this article. Julie, you did a remarkable job culling those quotes to show just how applicable advice from the past still can be today!

Although we have often heard Obama's challenges compared to FDR's, it is a new look to consider the similarities between two extraordinary women such as Michelle Obama and Eleanor Roosevelt. Just as Obama might look to the New Deal, Michelle is poised to play a significant role as First Lady, helping her country just as much as Eleanor Roosevelt, and leaving her own mark on the job.

WHAT A GREAT ARTICLE THIS WAS. I ENJOYED IT LIKE I HAVE ALL OF JULIE FENSTERS WRITINGS. SHE MAKES ME LOOK AT THINGS IN A NEW PERSPECTIVE

If only someone had advised me to bend my knees.
This piece is fun. I like thinking of Michelle as part of a line.

Eleanor didn't have to cope with the 24 hour faux news tabloid cycle focused on creating conflict and controversy. The majority of the public didn't even know that her husband was in a wheel chair.

For her next column, I'd love for Julie Fenster to eavesdrop on a conversation between Michelle and the ghost of Eleanor's personal coach and political mentor, Louis Howe. An ex-newsman and experienced political operative who in the early 1930s could foresee a woman as president--and hoped to make it Eleanor, in 1940--Howe likely would be surprised that the United States had elected an African-American president before a woman.

Having made Eleanor, insecure and suffering from low self-esteem, into a confident speaker and public figure--and in the process a more-assertive but still-supportive wife--Howe would not fail to perceive the unique possibilities open to the first First Lady of African descent. He would also perceive the unique challenges of that role--and how the public's reaction to what Michelle Obama says and does affects its opinion of her husband. Like Franklin and Eleanor, Barack and Michelle are cut from somewhat-different cloth.

In a book with a now-ironic subtitle, "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" (Free Pr., 2007), the conservative race-relations scholar Shelby Steele described two, alternate strategies that black Americans have used to get ahead in a white-majority society. One he called "bargaining," the other, "challenging." "Bargainers strike a 'bargain' with white America in which they say, I will not rub America's ugly history of racism in your face if you will not hold my race against me. Challengers do the opposite .... They charge whites with inherent racism and then demand that they prove themselves innocent by supporting black-friendly policies like affirmative action ...."

Steele argued that Obama was unelectable because he would be unable to express his true beliefs about race in America, and that voters would sense this lack of authenticity. Obama would be caught, Steele thought, between the black-identity politics of his African-American base--exacerbated, because of his mixed parentage and abandonment by his father, by a need to prove himself sufficiently "black"--and the resentments and fears of many white voters. Steele was wrong for two reasons. African-American voters proved themselves quite capable of recognizing, in this candidate of mixed racial background, a person who had--like them--at times in his life felt the sting of racism. His appearance alone satisfied them of that; the candidate had no need for displays of racial identity or solidarity. Secondly, Steele misread Barack Obama's temperament, and underestimated his political skill and discipline. Barack Obama won election by making it clear that he intended to be a president for ALL Americans, and by keeping the focus off his race and on the issues of the hour: the economy, health care, and especially our by-then unpopular entanglement in Iraq.

Had the candidate been Michelle Obama rather than Barack, Steele might have been right. Barack is a bargainer, but I sense that--left to her own devices--Michelle is a challenger. We got a glimpse of that during the campaign, in Michelle's unscripted remark that because her husband had won the nomination, "For the first time" she was, "proud of my country." The McCain campaign quickly hustled Cindy McCain out to assure voters that SHE had "ALWAYS been proud of my country."

For me, the most-striking comment by Mrs. Roosevelt in the conversation that Julie Fenster imaginatively constructed was this: "I never said anything ... without first balancing it against the objectives which I thought he [FDR] was working for at the time." The operative word there must be "balancing," because--as Eleanor must have known--her appeal was primarily to left-leaning groups who were already in her husband's camp, while he was desperately working to shore up support among groups--such as southern Democrats--who were much-less-reliably in his corner. He was building the Jefferson Memorial, and elevating Jefferson to the pantheon of great presidents; at the same time (1939) she was arranging for Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial after the D.A.R. had barred her from performing in Constitution Hall. Eleanor's ideals were laudable--and I'm sure that FDR thought so also--but did NOT always dovetail with her husband's objectives.

We should, and do, judge leaders not by their ideals, but by their accomplishments. We remember Lincoln for preserving the union, and for ending slavery. We forget that he tempered his ideals in order to accomplish those huge feats. Few today quote his remarks to (white) Illinois voters that by no means did his opposition to the extension of slavery imply support for black suffrage; he opposed that, he said. Even the emancipation came in stages. A wise leader knows that by trying to move his fellows further than they can, at the moment, be persuaded to go, he or she forfeits the chance to lead them where--with effort and luck--he might be able to take them. FDR understood that better than Eleanor. Does Michelle Obama understand it as well as President Obama?

For idealism, concern for others, selflessness, and strength of character, Michelle could do worse than model herself on Eleanor Roosevelt. For practicality and political astuteness, and ability to instill hope, she might better look to FDR. For perseverance in the face of difficulty, both Franklin and Eleanor are excellent models. And for lessons on how to keep two very-different people together--and together accomplish their objectives--Michelle should read Julie M. Fenster's excellent new biography of Louis Howe, "FDR's Shadow."

Fun dialogue! And good advice for all of us, not just first ladies. Good job culling the quotes from so many different sources.

Michelle Obama has a voice. Rightwingnuts heard it when Ms Obama said that she was ashamed for America. Rightwingnuts are hearing impaired in addition to being dense, depraved, disgusting & a million other handicaps. Rightwingnuts didn't hear Ms Obama saying, "...for..." ;they tried to say that Ms Obama had said, "...of...". The rightwingnuts still have egg on their faces & covering them from head to toe for that.
It's gotten so that the public ignores the tantrums of rightwingnuts & their ilk. Rightwingnuts grow livid with rage when they are ignored. The rightwingnuts & their ilk will be sent to their rooms soon.

For idealism, concern for others, selflessness, and strength of character, Michelle could do worse than model herself on Eleanor Roosevelt. For practicality and political astuteness, and ability to instill hope, she might better look to FDR. For perseverance in the face of difficulty, both Franklin and Eleanor are excellent models. And for lessons on how to keep two very-different people together--and together accomplish their objectives--Michelle should read Julie M. Fenster's excellent new biography of Louis Howe, "FDR's Shadow."

Creative, this was the silliest piece I ever wasted my time reading, CLINTON also had conversations with Eleanore, libs have short memories.

Julie - this is a wonderful piece - timely and timeless at the same time. Bravo for bringing together past and present so artfully - I'm sure both of these extraordinary ladies would heartily approve! PB