Barack Obama is as yet unproven, and so far not particularly impressive. But on Michelle Obama, my mind is made up. She is a brash mediocrity, with a sense of grievance and of entitlement, both nursed by “affirmative action”.  There was something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on until Yusuf Smith nailed it for me: she is a WAG. Wikipedia defines WAG, a term Americans may not know, as follows:

WAGs (or Wags) is an acronym used particularly (but not exclusively) by the British tabloid press to describe the Wives And Girlfriends of high-profile footballers, originally the England national football team. It came into common use during the 2006 World Cup, held in Germany, although it had been used occasionally before that.

 
WAGs are generally blonde, which Michelle Obama, is not – if she were she would not have got into Princeton. Yusuf Smith, right about nearly everything except Islam, agrees:

Yesterday, while Barack Obama was discussing how to save the world economy with Gordon Brown, Berlusconi et al, Michelle Obama put in a planned, but mostly unannounced, visit to a girls' school in Islington, north London. You can read a synopsis of what she said here and there are various videos of bits of it available. She told the girls that when she was at school, she did not "cut class" because she loved getting A's and thought smart was cool, and that "whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude". I have a few reservations about it, however, concerning how realistic an example she is of a high-achieving woman.

To put it simply, Michelle Obama's distinction now is being a powerful man's wife, a type of female role which has existed in every generation, and like all such roles, you don't get it by doing well at school. While some American First Ladies have had independent careers (e.g. Lady Bird Johnson in broadcasting, Hillary Clinton in law), others were previously undistinguished (e.g. Laura Bush), even if they became well-known as campaigners on one issue or another. Unlike Cherie Blair, for example, who is a renowned human rights lawyer (some of whose activities have been called embarrassing to her husband), Michelle Obama has actually drastically reduced her independent professional activities since her husband started his campaign to become President. And London girls' schools don't often feature speeches by Chicago intellectual property lawyers and hospital executives.

[A]t a time when one of the biggest problems is the lack of ambition, and the aspiration to be famous for its own sake or to be so-called WAGs (wives and girlfriends of famous men), surely some people will have questioned whether there was some incongruity in a speech of this type being delivered by a First Lady, even one of working-class Black background. Some would surely have taken the message that doing well was less important for a woman than marrying well (not that choosing one's partner wisely is a bad lesson in itself, but I am sure that is not what they had in mind). I hope the teachers encouraged some discussion in the school about this issue.

Behind every successful man, joked Les Dawson among others, there stands an astonished mother-in-law. The helpmeet, muse, power behind the throne – whatever you like to call it – has always been with us. She helps a powerful or talented man fulfil his potential, and massages his ego. Sometimes she is intelligent in her own right, but nobly – or stupidly, in my opinion - sacrifices her mind and her ambitions for his. Sometimes she is just a gold-digger. Either way, it is not a role I admire – such women tend to be hostile to other women, and are pretty much interchangeable – and certainly not one that young women should aspire to.