Laura Bush Was Pro-Choice -- and Dozens of Other Things You Never Knew About America's First Ladies

By Carl Sferrazza Anthony, Huffington Post. Posted February 6, 2009.

Lest you assume this was some liberal bias based on whom she was wed, consider the first lady who tried to be president. Throughout the 2008 campaign, no comprehensive review analyzing Clinton's substantive achievements and policy influence as first lady appeared. Perhaps it was spinners fearing renewed cries of "who elected her," but the media conducted no independent research and instead relied on its old narrative: she failed at health care reform, went "traditional" with international goodwill trips, was victimized by the Monica Lewinsky scandal and ran for the Senate.

So much good that she did initiate -- both overtly and covertly -- was left uncovered. Coverage would have also provided a glimpse into the real functioning of a first lady's evolution during her tenure. Clinton helped craft the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and bipartisan work with even Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, prompted Congress to pass it in 1997. She also pushed a bill protecting unadopted children "aging out" of the system without a safety net in 1998.

This wasn't just the culmination of her pre-White House expertise and advocacy in child protection law, but evidence of how well she learned the ropes of first-ladyship; what she called a "focused issue" passed faster than a "broad agenda." Had "Hillcare" not failed earlier, the sweeping adoption changes might not have happened.

"You see so much, you meet so many types of people. You can't help but grow," Nancy Reagan once told me.

Researching the lives and work of first ladies -- and the substantive and consequential impact of it all -- can be awfully frustrating at times like now. Scanning Michelle Obama's post-election coverage makes it seem that the importance of being first lady is about sleeveless dresses and puppy breeds. It isn't.

And even though she doesn't foxhunt and winter in Palm Beach, Fla., there seems to be little point trying to clarify the media narrative that she's the second incarnation of Jacqueline de modele.

And yet -- considering the freshness that the new administration brings, I'm hoping some of it may be applied to the perceptions, expectations and understanding of what a first lady is and does, and how she impacts the presidency -- and have Michelle Obama benefit from that. It's going to require depth from the media, assertiveness from the East Wing and a reality check from the public.

Ever since Laura Bush showed Michelle Obama the family quarters, the centennial of that tradition, I've had a steady avalanche of media inquiries on the subject.

As historian of the National First Ladies Library and author of biographies and overviews of the role, its been disheartening for me to realize how eagerly the media disregard history. The foreign press seemed the most inquisitive about this American phenomenon of investing so much fascination with the wives who happened to be married to the presidents, but the U.S. media was essentially seeking a quote to confirm the narrative about Michelle Obama that was already solidifying.

Reporters have tended to fall back on a false counterpoint as old as Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison: "traditionalist" or "activist" (sorry, make that Kennedy and Clinton -- the media consider anything before Eleanor Roosevelt irrelevant).

The reality is that even the most public traditionalist ends up a stealth activist (Nancy Reagan was the first to urge her husband's dialogue with the Soviets; Mamie Eisenhower isolated Ike from Joe McCarthy by barring the senator from an annual Senate dinner at the time of his red-baiting hearings; Nellie Taft -- remembered for starting the cherry blossom trees -- was the first to initiate policy, health and safety standards in the federal workplace).

Conversely, the publicly acknowledged activist is often a covert traditionalist (Clinton redecorated the Blue Room; Roosevelt served tea from a silver service; Carter sponsored a poetry festival).

In response to the inquiries, my instinct was to offer facts: Born in 1964, Michelle Obama is a baby boomer like Laura Bush and Clinton, the so-designated generation born between 1945 and 1964. She will be 45 when she becomes first lady, the same age Clinton was when her tenure began. She's the third native Chicagoan, after Betty Ford and Clinton, and fourth to earn a graduate degree, after Nixon, Clinton and Laura Bush.

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Carl Sferrazza Anthony is historian of the National First Ladies Library and the author of several books, including the two-volume history, First Ladies, a history of the role's evolution and political power. He also has written biographies of Jacqueline Kennedy, Florence Harding and Nellie Taft.

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