PrintFebruary 19, 2010
Michelle Obama to appear on Mike Huckabee's Fox News show
President Obama had a dismal first year in overall ratings for a president's performance; cue the change in program-a new communication strategy.
Gibbs and others at the White House described four major changes that have been put in place since Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate with the election of Republican Scott P. Brown in Massachusetts and the health-care effort stalled in Congress.
They're not changing the game plan; they're just executing Stage II.
Step One: Hold a news conference after lying low for seven months. Tell the Republicans that they're being obstinate, and they better learn to listen to the boss.
Step Two: Set up a health care summit at the end of February to show how open the president is to new ideas.
Step Three: Have Michelle Obama discuss her anti-childhood-obesity initiative on FoxNews.
Did you see Michelle in her little black "muscle" dress? She's splashed on the front page of FoxNews in its promotion of her scheduled appearance on the Huckabee with Mike Huckabee show this weekend. Mike Huckabee seems like a nice fellow, inviting Michelle to discuss her new initiative on curbing childhood obesity in America, but doesn't he see that giving Michelle Obama prime time face time boosts the Administration's image, and does nothing for the poor children?
Benign and urgent: the mantra of PR machines. Present the heart wrenching issue couched with a big smile and sincere words. Then get on a talk show like Huckabee to blur the lines between the harshness of a socialist agenda and the conservative opposition.
The White House is steering its message into the opposition's turf.
Huckabee could digress from the topic of how to feed children properly to the topic of Michelle's racism, or why she voluntarily handed in her law license five years after she obtained it.
Or maybe he could ask her about her time as the vice president of the University of Chicago Medical Center when she worked with David Axelrod's public relations firm, ASK Public Strategies, Inc., to reduce the number of indigent people showing up in the emergency room all in the name of increasing the hospital's profits.
Huckabee could bring up the compensation of $1 million paid annually to her personal staff. Or he could ask her why she spent twenty years listening to the ranting of a black liberation theology proponent in Chicago. Was she sitting in the pew disagreeing for all those years?
There are lots of questions for the first lady. Since Huckabee has already promised Michelle the forum, he could stop playing mister nice guy, and turn the tables. She may walk off the stage, but at least he would show he has a backbone.
