Comments about ‘Kathleen Parker: Michelle Obama not the first to dislike her role in White House’

Mrs. Obama is a classy lady despite the republican attacks and rhetoric.

Mrs. Obama is a great role model. She's a great wife and mother, to be sure, and family values are evident in the White House. But no matter what she or any First Lady does, there will always be cheap shots. That's too bad.

Michelle Obama is under greater assault today because she is Barack Obama's wife. Unlike all other First Ladies, she is the first African-American First Lady, wife of the first African-American President. This sets her apart from all other First Ladies. As part of the plan to vilify and make the President "foreign" and "the other", it is necessary, by extension, to make Michelle Obama an "illegitimate" First Lady.

She has the grace and intelligence to not let those who try to harm her family achieve their ultimate goal. She knows how to rise above it and, in this way, strenthen her husband, herself, and her family.

I like Michelle Obama about as well as several other recent First Ladies. Theirs is a tough job.

Overall I think we should treat First Ladies with a fair amount of deference and the First Family with a lot of deference.

Republicans should accord to the First Lady the same respect they would want for Ann Romney (should the election turn out that way). And the Obama children should pretty much be left alone.

It wasn't pretty or easy for the Bush girls to come of age under the spotlight. They didn't get elected to anything and should be treated as such.

The office of the Presidency is extremely tough. The occupant of the White House has chosen to be part of the hard hitting political scene. Not fully so their spouses and not at all their children. Whether the president is 100% our guy or someone we just don't like, we should accord to their families maximum deference in recognition of the President taking on the toughest job in America (and perhaps the entire world).

Like him and him or not, the Obama's have delivered the goods as being role models in family values.