Laura Bush: Obama, Michelle Benefit From Double Standard

NYDailyNews.com:

President Obama benefits from a double-standard in the press compared to her husband, Laura Bush said today — and Michelle Obama has managed to escape the pigeon hole Bush and other first ladies have gotten jammed in.

Asked on “Fox News Sunday” if the press would have been howling over the White House’s reaction to the BP oil spill even louder if it happened on George Bosh’s watch, the ex-First Lady said, “I think that’s right, probably.” And she didn’t think anyone should be surprised. “But you know, it’s just — that’s just how it is.”

It’s not just just President Obama who’s getting a break from the media, she said. Michelle Obama has escaped being stereotyped the way Laura was as “mumsy” staying home baking cookies.

“The press in general typecasts every woman that lives in the White House, the other first ladies, because always our first ladies have been a lot more interesting, a lot more complicated, than their box that they’re sort of put in,” Bush said. 

But not Michelle.

“I think that she’s — and maybe this is just her age, that she’s younger,” Bush said. “But I think she’s been given the benefit of doubt more by the press than former first ladies,” Bush said.

“Certainly, look at the way Barbara Bush — mother, grandmother — was typed as a grandmotherly, you know, type woman, when, in fact, Barbara Bush is as strong as horseradish and people really know that,” she said.

But it’s her husband who ws really the victim of liberal bias.

“I think that, you know, one of the things that happened when George was president was that everything, including the weather, became his fault,” she said. “And it’s just an unrealistic, really, expectation of our president.”