World News. Barack Obama - biography. Age, personal life, photo Say goodbye to protocol style
Barack Obama turns 52 on August 4. Becoming the first African American president of the United States, he made a real revolution in the social structure of the country. Such a colossal career take-off would have been impossible if there were no representatives of the fair sex next to him, who support and love him all these years. Meet the main women in the life of Barack Obama.
Michelle Obama, wife
On October 3, 2012, Barack and Michelle Obama celebrated their 20th anniversary of marriage, in honor of which the President wrote on Twitter:
“Twenty years ago on this day, I married the love of my life and my best friend. Happy anniversary to you, Michelle. BO ". Michelle really is not only Obama's beloved woman all her life, but also a friend and ally.
The image of a strong, educated and at the same time family and feminine life companion added a lot of points to Barack during the election campaign.
“Do you want to know how President Obama prepared for the election debate? - Michelle once asked the audience on one of the TV shows. "He fought with me!"
In an interview with the American TV channel ABC, Michelle said: “After the wedding, Barack did not promise me mountains of gold, but he gave his word that he would provide me with an interesting life. And he held it back. "
Michelle is an active advocate for a healthy lifestyle. For example, in the garden of the presidential residence, the first lady planted a vegetable garden where she grows organic vegetables. She has been called a style icon more than once, a model of a devoted wife and caring mother. In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Michelle at the top of the list of the most powerful women in the world. Ideal woman.
Malia Ann, daughter
Malia Ann was born on July 4, 1998, the first child of the Obamas. She was 10 years old when her dad became president of the United States. When Barack was picking up Ann from the hospital (she was named after Barack's early deceased mother - Stanley Ann Dunham), he stopped the car and vowed that he would become the best dad in the world.
Despite her innate modesty and dislike of publicity, Malia actively participates in her father's life, regularly accompanies him on trips abroad, and appears at official events with other family members. For example, Malia attended both of the Pope's inaugurations in 2009 and 2013. The schoolgirl recently visited West Africa with her family.
At the insistence of her father, Malia attended circles (including theater) from childhood, played football, dancing, piano and tennis.
Malia is a big fan of the creativity of artists Beyoncé and Justin Bieber, whom she had a chance to meet personally.
Natasha ("Sasha"), youngest daughter
Natasha was born on June 10, 2001, when her father was serving as Senator from Illinois. During this period, the Obama couple was going through a crisis - a lot of mutual claims and omissions accumulated between the spouses. But there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped.
3-month-old Sasha was admitted to the hospital with the meningitis virus and was on the verge of death. Barack and Michelle immediately forgot the quarrels and mutual claims. The trouble brought the family together.
Sasha, along with her older sister Malia, always accompanies her parents on trips. When Obama came to Russia with his wife and daughters in 2009, in a conversation with reporters he said that he named his youngest daughter in honor of the wife of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, Natalia Goncharova. And in the home circle, the girl's name is Sasha - in honor of the poet himself.
Stanley Ann Dunham, mother
Barak's mom was an anthropologist and spent her entire life doing research at the University of Hawaii. It was there that she met African student Barack Obama Sr., in Russian language classes, and on February 2, 1961, she married him. Three years later, a divorce followed, after which Barack Obama Jr. grew up without a father. Stanley remarried, but his stepfather did not devote much time to his stepson.
Ann lived in two countries - in the United States in Hawaii, then in Jakarta - the homeland of her second Indonesian husband. During mom's absence, Madeleine's grandmother looked after Barack in Hawaii. In his memoirs, Barak recalls that he was always very happy when his mother came from Jakarta with gifts and sweets. For some time, Barak still lived with his mother in Indonesia.
In 1994, Anne was diagnosed with uterine cancer, which caused Dunham's death on November 7, 1995.
Later, Obama admitted that he was very sorry that, due to being busy at work, he could not be with his mother during the days when she was fading away. Obama scattered the ashes of his mother over the waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Madeleine Dunham, maternal grandmother
Madeleine Dunham, who until her retirement worked as a manager at a Hawaiian bank, was one of the closest people to Barack. When Madeleine died of cancer on November 2, 2008 at the age of 86, Barack said:
"Madeleine was the foundation of our family and a woman of incredible virtue, strength and modesty."
Grandmother doted on her grandson, followed his election campaign with interest until the last days of her life. However, the woman who put so much effort into raising her grandson was never destined to see him in the role of president. Madeleine died just a few months before Barack took the top job.
The ashes of his grandmother, like the ashes of his mother, were scattered by Barak over the waters of the Pacific Ocean just a few days after taking office as president.
Marian Shields Robinson, mother-in-law
The 75-year-old mother-in-law of the president, Marian Robinson, has always been a person for Barack to rely on. During the period when Barack and Michelle were actively pursuing their careers, grandmother could always look after Malia and Natasha.
Marian also takes an active part in all family celebrations and trips.
For example, not so long ago, together with Barack, Michelle and two granddaughters, Marian went to West Africa. "The first mother-in-law of the USA" loves to cook for her family and pleases her relatives with excellent pies and turkey.
Sarah Obama, Barack's paternal grandmother
Sarah Obama is the second wife of Barack Obama's paternal grandfather, who lives in the homeland of Barack Obama Sr. in Kenya. Despite the fact that she is not a blood relative to the President of the United States, he treats her warmly. In his memoirs, the president calls Sarah affectionately "granny." Barak visited relatives in Kenya three times.
Before the last election, Sarah wished her grandson success in every possible way. In an interview with the American television channel CNN in 2012, she said:
“I wish Barack victory in the elections. He's probably very busy in America, I'm waiting for him to visit me again. "
Sara is a Muslim. In 2011, my grandmother even made a pilgrimage to Mecca and prayed that Barak would become a Muslim as soon as possible (Barak himself always considered himself a Christian).
Beyoncé, singer
31-year-old Beyoncé is often called the "court singer" because she occasionally performs during state ceremonies.
When Barack Obama became head of state in January 2009, Beyoncé sang the song At Last by cult singer Etta James during the Obamas' first dance.
According to American tradition, the president-elect dances the "first dance" with his wife. During the dance, First Lady Michelle was in a long white dress, and Barack in a strict dark suit. During the performance of the song, Beyoncé was so emotional that she shed a tear. In 2012, Beyoncé sang again for Obama during his inauguration, singing the US anthem.
Beyoncé not only sings for the president, but along with her husband Jay Z is close friends with the Obama family.
Dad is gay and mom is tranny
Are the daughters rented?
Let's continue our little investigation into the unusual family of the still acting (mostly on the nerves) American President Barack Obama. Let's assume that he is indeed a homosexual and his wife is transgender. Where did the children come from?
Malia Ann was born on July 4, 1998, and her sister Natasha, whom everyone calls Sasha, was born on June 10, 2001. Times are quite recent, mobile phones are just beginning, but everyone had decent cameras, as well as inexpensive camcorders - amateur movie cameras. Films and photographs of their children were shot by all and sundry.
For example:
Pregnant mom with a big tummy
- here she is tired, but happy, just after giving birth with a baby in her arms,
- here the baby smiles with the first toothless smile,
- here the crumb is fed the first fruit puree, and it is all smeared on the cheeks.
So, there are almost none of them in the Obama family. There are no baby photos of the elder Malia with her parents.
There are no pictures of pregnant Michelle.
Joint high-quality photos appear only when the sisters are already a little older.
By comparison, Obama's predecessors, Bushi:
Next moment. There are no birth certificates or records of the birth of Obama's daughters. Such records are in the public domain about all the children of previous presidents. Especially when there were some doubts.
There is no official information about Malia and Sasha. It’s empty.
Fun fact: Michelle Obama does not remember how many years she has been married. She could not answer the girl's question and asked the audience for help. “You know yourself! Tell me when? " Then she said that she had been married for a long time, 20 years, or certainly more than 10! Wow scatter.
It is sometimes difficult for a white person to distinguish between dark-skinned faces. Forgive me if I offend anyone, but they say that white people are all the same to the Chinese. And yet, with the naked eye, you can see that Obama's daughters are not very much like their parents. This became especially noticeable when the girls grew up.
Since rumors about Obama and Michelle the male homosexuality spread in alternative sources, many are trying to resolve the question - where did the girls come from? Who are their parents? Kidnapped? Brought from Morocco?
The reality turned out to be more prosaic. Recently, a version very similar to the truth began to circulate. Obama has family friends - a black couple, Marty Nesbitt and his wife Anita Blanchard.
They meet often, spend a lot of time together. Anita is a doctor by profession. Obama's daughters may be the couple's rented children. Whether out of friendship, at the request of the CIA, for big money, for the sake of the country, call it whatever you like.
And what? Comfortable. Sisters and biological parents regularly see each other, go on vacation together.
Girls are constantly in front of real dads and mothers, grow up in the luxurious conditions of the White House, receive an excellent education, are world-famous simply for their origin, profitable suitors are provided, and so on. What's bad?
The outward resemblance is obvious. Especially with Malia. Sasha, in my opinion, looks less like that. But she doesn't look like Barack and Michelle at all.
The most incredible fact: you know who gave birth to Michelle both times ??
This is Anita Blanchard! She's a doctor!
To summarize, what is my personal opinion about this whole situation? Where is the truth, and where is the fiction?
The fact of Obama's homosexuality is completely real. Too much evidence, including the physical elimination of some of the witnesses. Not all of this evidence is presented in my first article. Maybe I'll do it later. In addition, it fits perfectly into the existing tradition - to have incriminating evidence on the president - to keep pace and do what he is told. It is clear to everyone that Obama is just a talking head. He himself may not be an evil person, his smile, like many gays, is simply charming, his charm splashes. However, this is a plasticine man, completely spineless, and in his post, maybe against his will, he unleashed a series of wars and provocations, continuing the bloody tread of American democracy on the planet. It can be seen that he is a vain guy, he loves to show off, break off jokes, reward his beloved with all sorts of titles and medals. In general, for the beads and rattles, for the prestige of his position, he clearly fulfilled all the commands of the real owners.
Michelle is a man? On this score, I have no firm intuitive opinion. Reason resists accepting such an incredible fraud. Well, how can you not trust your eyes and ears if Michelle walks like a duck, quacks like ducks and looks like a duck?))
Therefore, I will leave this point in question.
So is the Obama daughters question.
It is possible that the story of Michelle and the daughters was introduced as fake news to mask the real fact of Obama's sexual orientation with its absurdity.
This is a dark matter.
Something tells me that as soon as Obama gets out of the way, more irrefutable evidence will appear in the public domain.
Still would. In other countries, crowds of curious people stood along the roads where the motorcade with the American leader passed. All local radio stations, newspapers and Internet forums excitedly discussed the visit of the 44th President of the United States. Local TV broke the entire broadcasting network in order to show every minute of the world's main media star's stay in the country. To the surprise of American journalists, there was nothing like this in Russia. And this, by today's world standards, is a clear anomaly.
Reporters and political analysts disagreed on what was the matter. Russia is out of world trends - this is the conclusion made by newspaper journalists. More astute analysts have proposed exactly the opposite hypothesis: it's all about kinship, the fundamental similarity of the phenomena of political support for Obama and Russian leaders. To put it bluntly, in Russia, the trouble-free "magic of" Obama "does not work" because its own Putin-Medvedev magic is at work. "Tea for you?" - "Thank you, I have mine."
Perhaps the best confirmation of this version was offered by ... Barack Obama himself with his extremely unexpected speech in Moscow in front of NES alumni. What he said was much more like not traditional American foreign policy rhetoric, but rather like some recent United Russia programmatic text. There are parallels with what was said in our country and with which the representatives of the Bush administration were directly arguing - literally in every second thesis of Obama's report.
"State sovereignty should be the cornerstone of the international order. America cannot and will not impose any system of government on other countries, and we do not choose a party or person who will lead another state. Just like all countries should have the right to choose their leaders, states should have the right to protect their borders as well as their own foreign policy. This is true for both Russia and the United States. Any system that deviates from these rights leads to anarchy. Each country forges its own well". And further: "America is striving for an international system in which we apply the same standards to ourselves as to other countries ..."
When I listened to this, I had the impression that the American president was reading the famous article by Surkov, "Paragraphs on Sovereign Democracy." Surkov: "To be on the side of the community of sovereign democracies (and the free market) is against any global dictatorships (and monopolies). Make national sovereignty a factor in fair globalization and democratization of international relations. These ideas are based on the idea of a just world order as a community free communities (sovereign democracies), whose cooperation and competition is carried out according to reasonable rules. "
The thesis of sovereignty as something that, contrary to the theories of globalization, continues to remain the basis of the world order, is not the only one of the points of roll call. Obama: "The future does not belong to those who lead armies to the battlefield or hide missiles underground - the future belongs to educated young people with imagination and creativity." These are almost literal quotes from Surkov, where we read: “Among the symbols of power, advanced science, moral advantage, dynamic industry, fair laws, personal freedom, and everyday comfort are becoming more and more vivid. ".
A look at the history of the twentieth century, especially Russian-American history, is something for which Obama has already been subjected to devastating criticism by the right, accusing him of "servility to the Russians." Obama: "The Cold War ended thanks to many years of efforts by many countries, as well as because the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe were determined to make the war end peacefully."
There are two versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: Russian and true, Liz Cheney is outraged at the WSJ, and now President Obama has shown himself to be a supporter of the Russian version. It's true. Here is what Surkov said on this topic in 2006: “It will not be superfluous to note once again: Russia was brought to democracy not by“ defeat in the Cold War, ”but by the very European essence of its culture." won the Cold War, we believe that we have won our totalitarian system. "
Best of the day
It is interesting that grief over "Bushism", untimely filed into the archives by Obama, as it turned out, is peculiar not only to American conservatives. No less suffering in this regard can be found in the Russian opposition media. "The triumph of" realism "with a simultaneous rejection of the principle of support for democratic transformations and civil society in other countries," - indignantly complains about Obama "Daily Journal" in an article devoted to the creation of a joint Russian-American group on civil society.
The apotheosis of this grief is a public denunciation written by a group of conscientious citizens addressed to President Medvedev. Pathos of the text: such stranglers of freedom as Surkov have no place in the pure and bright cause of the Russian-American partnership on civil institutions. This, perhaps, has a reason. With the necessary clarification that there is no place in this case for such people as Barack Obama. Well, or, in any case, such as his political adviser Michael McFaul, who became the co-chairman of the group from the American side (Surkov, as you know, from the Russian side).
By the way, in place of McFaul and Surkov, the first thing I would do would be to create a special subcommittee, which would include the authors of this letter from the Russian side, and Liz Cheney and her like-minded authors from the WSJ on the American side. "Other Russia" and "Other America", they would have found each other, and together they would have something to say to the world.
"Realism" is now almost a stigma on their lips. For it turned out that Obama's "realism" has much more in common with the sovereign democracy, hated by the regime-fighters, than with the usual slogans, accusations and promises of American leaders (and Russian oppositionists). This means that the unique competitive advantage of our zits-missionaries no longer operates: it turns out that in order for the Americans to understand each other and build normal relations, it is not at all necessary to take the only correct ("truthful", as Liz Cheney put it) point of view printed in gold letters in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. There is a more constructive and understandable language of communication than the mantras of the "ministry of truth" - the "Russian version" of realism.
Based on materials from ng.ru
They moved to the White House when they were just 10 and 7 years old. The youngest residents of the mansion over the past 65 years, Malia and Sasha Obama spent two terms of their father under the tutelage of the presidential guard and all these years grew up literally in front of the entire nation.
America then saw everything: innocent childish pranks and cheeky teenage antics, touching family outings and the first noisy parties, experimenting with style and finding oneself. Of course, their childhood was not easy: very little girls, they had to sacrifice banal childhood joys, witness endless attacks on their father and be present where this could have been completely avoided (do you take your children to absolutely every event?).
Malia and Sasha at the second inauguration of Barack Obama's father, January 21, 2013Now Malia is 19, and Sasha is 16, both of them are no longer the cute girls that entered the White House 8 years ago, but fully formed beautiful girls preparing to start a new stage in their biographies. However, not everything is as simple as it seems, because the past life within the framework of the protocol now and then makes itself felt.
Forget at parties
Being a teenager and still being a model of obedience and morality is not an easy task. And even if your face is in the top of the most recognizable in the world, you also sometimes want to succumb to reckless fun and not think about the consequences.
“Of course, the children of top officials of the state grow up in special conditions compared to their peers,” the expert comments. clinical psychologist Lucie Suleimanova, - They come under double pressure: on the one hand, it can be a sharp change in the parental approach to upbringing in connection with the new highest status of the father, on the other - close attention of the press and society as a whole. Life turns into life behind the glass. "
In the early years of their father's administration, the little ones regularly played the role of a universal touching factor. But as time went on, the girls grew up, and the first psychological symptoms of adolescence began to take their toll. “Pride in the new status of the family, a surge in a sense of responsibility gradually gave way to fatigue and stress associated with the need to“ keep your face ”24 hours a day and control your emotions and behavior, explains Luciya Suleimanova. that the level of responsibility of all family members was fueled by the fact that Obama is the first "non-white" US president. Tolerance is tolerance, but nobody has canceled the historical memory ”.
Riots followed - absolutely normal for all adolescents, but for some reason completely unacceptable for presidential daughters. Sasha and Malia did not have close friends. And how could they appear, because with their schedule and status you can't invite anyone to visit, you can't go to the cinema without security, and even to a banal bachelorette party with harmless fortune-telling, gossip and homemade manicure (so popularized in American youth comedies), the parents are definitely not will be allowed.
There were only parties where security guards would be able to guide you and where you could break away ... no, not with friends, but with acquaintances who, of course, will be glad to see you, but still are unlikely to become your best friends after. For Malia - as an older woman - these parties have become a great way to feel like an ordinary teenager, forget about the pressure being put on her and her family, and just live a life of her own.
Already at the beginning of the second administration of Barack Obama, Malia began increasingly to "abandon" her sister at the protocol events of the US First Family, missed important receptions and holidays, preferring to spend time at all kinds of parties. At one time, Malia's long absence from American television screens even gave rise to rumors in the press that the girl was being treated for drug addiction (after all, she was more than once noticed smoking something fun in the Snapchat-ah of Washington youth).
Finally, in the last year of her father's presidency, 15-year-old Sasha also joined the frenzy of her older sister. While the media was still spreading the news about how Malia smoked marijuana and danced twerk at her favorite music festival Lollapalooza (Chicago), Sasha suddenly made her debut at another party in Washington, at which, to the delight of the paparazzi, she did not calculate alcohol. And again about imaginary friends: as once happened with Malia (there was even a big scandal at Brown University), the journalists took photos of Sasha in a form that was not quite suitable for a presidential daughter ... from the social networks of other guests of the party.
Escape from Washington
But, be that as it may, almost 8 months have passed since Obama's last speech in the presidency. The persecution of the press weakened, the girls began a new life, but, as it turned out, the old habits have not gone anywhere. Immediately after moving from the White House, Sasha "rushed" with her friends to Miami, and a few months later she arranged a grand celebration for her sixteenth birthday, which was attended by the very cream of Washington's golden youth (among which, for example, was the daughter of actress Charriss Jackson, Jordan Skylar) ... Here, the girl amazed everyone with how mature she looks and how frankly she dresses.
As for Malia, after learning about her enrollment at Harvard, she took herself a "gap year" and went to New York. It would seem that now she, a 19-year-old girl and without five minutes a student of one of the best universities in the world, should finally become more serious, but that was not the case. It turned out that Malia never learned how to handle the freedom she was given. Just a month ago, the ex-First daughter again went to her beloved festival in Chicago, where, as expected, she again went overboard with alcohol and did not take into account the fact that in our age everyone has a smartphone with Internet access. Several incriminating videos have leaked onto the Internet at once. On one of them - a girl, as if in convulsions, dances to her favorite song, lying on the floor, and on the second - Malia, already tired and unable to move independently, is taken away by the festival employees in a golf cart.
“It so happened that the term of Obama’s presidency ended when both daughters go through mature puberty, which is characterized by a search for themselves outside the family format, a“ breakaway ”in all directions,” the expert explains. But the intensity of the "detachment" can be much higher - too much has been accumulated and suppressed in 8 years. In the behavior of the eldest daughter, there may be an element of a latent desire for shocking ("Yes! Finally, I can do what I want!"). And the press, with its unrelenting attention, only aggravates the situation. "
Meanwhile, it seems that the desire to shock is gradually waking up in Malia's younger sister Sasha, because that week she also came to the Lollapalooza festival. True, unlike her older relative, Sasha decided to attract attention not by dancing, but by her style of communication with young people. So, during one of the gatherings, the girl was found kissing a young man, with whom she, according to Snapchat users, was only familiar for a couple of minutes. Of course, the corresponding video immediately hit the Internet.
It seems that the more miles separate the girls from Washington, the freer they feel. It is no coincidence that immediately after Barack Obama's last speech, Sasha went on vacation to Miami, and Malia moved to New York for six months.
By the way, the desire to run away from everything "serious" and "protocol" was noticeable in Obama's eldest daughter even during his presidency. A couple of years ago, the girl said that she did not want to associate her life with politics, but she dreamed of becoming a producer. She tried to spend every vacation on an internship with a film company (she already has a background in such projects as the TV series Girls, the Sundance Film Festival and Halle Berry's film Outside), and the last few months Malia worked at the production center of The Weinstein Company in New York. Where she, of course, every now and then "caught" the paparazzi.
Say goodbye to protocol style
While still the First Daughters of the United States, Malia and Sasha received angry reviews from the public about their clothing style. For example, in 2014, Obama's political opponent, Republican Elizabeth Lauten, even posted a moralizing comment on her Facebook page in which she urged teenagers not to roll their eyes in front of the camera and dress according to their situation. Later, of course, Mrs. Lauten apologized for the post, but she was no longer able to keep her position.
On the other hand, as for the outfits, here we can agree with the republican: Malia and Sasha really did not always follow the diplomatic protocol. Crazy mini, casual style - the girls always looked older than their age (especially since at the age of 16 the eldest daughter of Michelle and Barack Obama was already as tall as her mother), and in such images they could be taken for adults. Later, however, Michelle began to dress Malia and Sasha in dresses of a more feminine cut (one might even say that these were mini versions of her own outfits), but the ultra-short length never went anywhere.
Now girls do not owe anything to anyone and can afford to dress like it-girls with absolutely impunity. Which is what they do. Sasha, for example, as can be seen from recent photos, appeared at a party in honor of her sixteenth birthday in a red silk slip dress from Jill Jill Stuart and, I must say, looked luxurious and even, perhaps, too sexy for her age. On vacation in Miami, the girl periodically walked a swimsuit with a print in the form of an American flag, which could also hardly have been allowed for her earlier.
Malia, on the other hand, feeling that no one is watching her appearance anymore, threw out all her feminine mini-dresses and now appears on the streets in her favorite casual looks. T-shirts, baseball caps, parkas and jeans - looking at the girl now, you wouldn't even think that she lived in the White House for eight years. Meanwhile, it is likely that the new image will help Malia to mimic a new environment for herself, because the next four years the girl will spend at Harvard, whose students change their favorite bombers and worn jeans for expensive suits and white shirts only closer to graduation.
Will studying at university help her overcome the puberty crisis? Quite doubtful, since since Malia moved to campus, students' social media has literally exploded with messages of undisguised joy at the opportunity to study with such a famous person. “In the cafeteria, I'm just 20 feet from Malia Obama. Wow!!! I'm shocked. ”“ How I want to be Malia Obama's best friend this year, ”these and other“ tweets ”, accompanied by stealthy photos of the president’s daughter, have already flooded the Internet.
And Malia herself, of course, sees when they try to photograph her, which, obviously, is not at all happy with her. A couple of days ago, for example, near the cafeteria she was "caught" by the grandmother of some student and, having previously shouted something like "God, this is Malia Obama!", She rushed to the girl with requests to take a picture. The student politely refused and went into the dining room, but the fan decided to wait for her favorite to finish dinner.
Malia did not have time to leave the building, as she was immediately blinded by the flash of her grandmother's camera. “Will you still poke this [camera] in my face, as if I were a little animal in a cage?” The student was indignant. But grandmother didn't care. She made her own shot.
“Perhaps a university in Australia or New Zealand would be a better educational destination for Malia. There, there would be less attention to her person, which means there are more chances for a softer overcoming of the crisis, ”said Luciya Suleimanova.
But, alas, the choice has been made, and how it will affect the further adaptation of Malia to the new reality, we still have to see. One thing we know for sure: it will be difficult for the girl - as, in fact, for her younger sister, who is still in transition.
LYUTSIA SULEIMANOVA - clinical psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences, managing partner of the Center for Educational Kinesiology, author of the "Get up and go" training. Personal site - luciapsycho.su
Photo: Getty Images, Legion-Media.ru, Twitter.com
January 8, 2010, 14:39Love in front of the whole world From the outside, Barack and Michelle Obama seem to be the embodiment of the ideal American family. "I would not be here today," the newly elected president said on a memorable November 2008 night, "if it were not for the support of my faithful friend, homemaker, the love of my life, US First Lady Michelle Obama." And when Barack, having finished a touching speech, hugged his wife and whispered: “I love you,” even the “steel lady” Oprah Winfrey had tears in his eyes. The relationship of the presidential couple has not always been ideal. According to journalist and writer Christopher Anderson, whose book Barack and Michelle: A Portrait of an American Family was recently released, the Obamas were on the verge of ... divorce eight years ago. First date Barack Obama met his soul mate in 1989. The future US president just finished his first year at Harvard and got a summer internship at one of the Chicago law firms, Sidley Austin. There, an experienced employee Michelle Robinson took him under her patronage. Barack fell in love with her at first sight. “Michelle had a bright and inviting smile,” he later recalls. However, the plumber's ambitious daughter quickly stopped all his advances, assuring him that she had "no time for romance." Michelle's coldness only inflamed the young intern. He bombarded her with love letters, flowers and phone calls - until she finally agreed to meet him. The first date dragged on for the whole day. “He completely conquered me,” the first lady of the United States admitted years later. Wedding Michelle did not dare to introduce her future spouse to her family for a long time. The fact is that Barak's grandparents on his mother's side were ... white, and Michelle grew up in a family that was proud of their black skin color. However, Obama managed to charm the parents of his beloved - on October 3, 1992, at the Trinity United Church in Chicago, Barack and Michelle became husband and wife. In 1996, Barack Obama took over as Senator in his home state of Illinois. Politics began to take a central place in his life, he practically did not have time for Michelle ... The birth of the eldest daughter The future first lady of the United States was angry with her husband for the hours of loneliness that she, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, had to spend while waiting for him. She called his work in the Senate "a waste of time" and complained that he could have earned "real money" long ago by working as a partner in one of the law firms. "We are poor as church mice," complained Michelle and called herself "the most miserable and lonely mouse in the world." On top of that, the couple, much to Michelle's chagrin, could not have children for 4 years. And who knows, we would now be talking about the Obama presidential family if Michelle had not discovered in November 1997 that she was pregnant ... Family crisis Alas, the birth of the eldest daughter Malia (July 4, 1998) did not unite the spouses. Moreover, it made them even more distant from each other. “It was not easy,” Michelle later admits. "We had a strong, but far from ideal family." Every day she was convinced that she had married a "worthless husband." In Barak, the future first lady was annoyed by everything: his habit of throwing socks and underwear around the house, leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor, smoking like a locomotive, staying up until 2 am at work and snoring. Michelle complained that he did not help her around the house at all and that "he would never even clean up a plate after him." According to the couple's friends, what annoyed her most of all was that she, an equally educated and intelligent woman, had to "clean up after her husband." "Why are you pestering me with all sorts of nonsense - the future 44th President of the United States dismissed her, - when I'm trying to change the world!" Divorce is inevitable However, the usually tactful and restrained Barack also had many complaints about his wife. He considered her endless complaints "unfair" and "short-sighted." “She is killing me with her incessant criticism,” he complained to friends and assured that he did any housework that his wife entrusted him with unquestioningly. And he added: "The birth of a child was not the most important event in my life ... but it brought a lot of stress and tension." “You only think of yourself,” Michelle Obama continued to reproach him. - I never thought that I would drag the family on myself. I didn't subscribe to it. " The birth of the youngest daughter By 2000, Michelle was tired of being reproached. After eight years of marriage, she was convinced that divorce was inevitable. The family was saved by the second daughter Natasha (in the family she is called Sasha), or rather her unexpected illness. In September 2001, a 3-month-old girl was urgently hospitalized with meningitis. Parents spent endless 72 hours in the hospital, taking turns taking turns at their daughter's crib. “My world has shrunk to the size of a dot,” Barak later admits. "Nothing interested me outside the hospital ward: no work, no plans, no future." For Michelle, this watch became a "nightmare". “Everyone who has children will understand how desperate we were and how much this grief brought us closer,” she will say years later. Together, no matter what In 2006, Barack Obama decided to fight for the presidency. “Michelle is my main adviser and assistant,” says the 44th US President today. “I don’t make a single important decision without consulting her.” Ironically, it was the presidency, not a partner in a law firm, that gave Barack more free time to spend with his family. “We try to have a romantic dinner every Friday or Saturday,” Michelle Obama admits to People. "And we spend the weekend with our girls." From the outside, it seems that they are an exemplary American family. But only Michelle and Barack know that behind the loving looks, smiles and hugs there are many years of hard and painstaking work of a “strong but imperfect family”.
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