DNC Day 1: A different kind of First Lady

There’s not much to say about the first day of the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion except to note that Michelle Obama will be a very dif­fer­ent kind of First Lady. And thank God for that.

She was artic­u­late, com­fort­able, lov­ing, steely, com­pe­tent and unafraid. And she was dar­ing. She seemed to adver­tise that she would take a unique path, sharply skewed from the clas­sic tea-and-comfort First Ladies of the past (which I dare say Cindy McCain would embody), yet not so far as Hillary’s policy-making Office-of-the-First-Lady. Michelle struck all the right notes, giv­ing a very polit­i­cally astute speech, that, if it was seen, should go a long way towards mak­ing peo­ple more com­fort­able with the Oba­mas in the White House.

In other notes: the kids were delight­ful, but really, who gave them an open micro­phone? And Ted Kennedy, who hasn’t really meant much to my polit­i­cal aware­ness, looked hale and hearty, but ter­ri­bly stilted. Per­haps he is not really well, just remark­ably far along the way to being so.

I’m look­ing for­ward to tonight.