Cover of LIFE, 1939

When I was a kid growing up,
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT was referred to as if she were some kind of Saint.

It would be years before I would learn of her intimate relationship with LORENA HICKOK (“HICK,” as she was called), and her place in LGBT Culture.
But my childhood memories are of her Words as revered.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
 
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.”
 
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
 
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
 
“Women are like teabags. You don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.”
 
“The future belongs to those who believe in the Beauty of their Dreams.”

I am a sort of a Baby Boomer, born late in that Game — after World War II, and into the Sixties — but I never understood this idea of a First Lady Leading and being the Mother of a Nation.
Our Presidents were all Men, after all.
From whom was I to get some context for this?
PAT NIXON?
The reprehensibly Out-Of-Touch NANCY REAGAN?
As TONY KUSHNER called her, ‘The Understandably Heavily Medicated LAURA BUSH’???

This Past Week, I understood what all of the Fuss was about.
A Nation in Pain.
A Nation So Desperately in Need of Healing.
A Nation in need of a Woman
to Care and Mother and Heal…

I Thank God for MICHELLE OBAMA!
I think she is my single Favorite AMERICAN!
She is Beautiful in Every Way!
She is Intelligent and Graceful and Truly epitomizes what it is to be a First Lady.

Whatever your Party and However you may be Considering Voting,
Would you consider Dropping any PreConceived Notions you may have, and watching what she said in New Hampshire a few days ago:
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