michelle o

nice WSJ profile on official green lodge feminine icon Michelle O, noteworthy just for that but also for

1 - the semi-implication in the article and in the 'interview outtakes' posted online that Barack maybe still hasn't totally quit smoking (update: might be reading too much into it, but the tenses seem a little cloudy...), which is unfortunate from a health perspective but also humanizing and kind of interesting. I've been curious, both b/c I feel bad for the guy to have to try and work on ending a stress-coping addiction in the middle of the most stressful time imaginable and because the (well, almost) total non-mention of his smoking in the press is a nice and weirdly old-fashioned reminder that there are still some lines, albeit totally random lines, wrt personal privacy and respect that they generally don't cross. did you know that Laura Bush is a smoker, too? but there's some kind of deal, spoken or unspoken, where the press never takes pictures of her smoking or asks or writes about it. I'll give 2:1 odds that if dude becomes president, that'll be another barrier that gets broken

2 - the WSJ's casual and totally gratuitous use of "vibe" in a supposedly serious article - not to be too blatantly carrying the torch for the much-missed and obviously ahead of the curve Internet Vibes, but I feel like this sentence would be unthinkable for the Journal in, say, 2005 or 2006, no?

"Friends and campaign aides describe them as a high-powered team built on contrasts: She's the heart to his head, the enforcer to his lapses, regimented to his laid-back, critic to his ego, details to his broad strokes, sarcasm to his sincerity, toughness to his cool vibe."

fuck that w00t bullshit maybe I am just too like not a total fucking internet nerd but I feel like 'vibe' was obviously the true breakout word of 2007

super tooz

can we talk about how amazing she looks in this picture and is in general (been meaning to link to this vanity fair profile for a minute)?? man I wish there could be a first-mate debate, Michelle needs to get Bill-level airtime, glad to see the campaign's working on this. I don't think Obama was joking when he was said she could beat him if she got into politics - whatever JFK vibe he gives off is at least doubled by her intense Jackie O vibes, or like Jackie O if she went to Princeton and Harvard and met her husband cos she was his fucking adviser at his first law firm job, so fucking badass and glamorous

also, on a totally different vibe, man McCain is also great how can you not love this awesome picture from drudge yesterday, imagine him as prez! personality goes a long way even/esp when the personality is like lovable foul-mouthed irascible semi-deformed former POW maniac, hard for me to ever really root against the dude, even if he were running against Michelle or like David Tyree etc

also fwiw, this Mitt Romney GQ piece hints at a hilariously American Psycho-esque vibe of incredibly sincere and deep-seated blandness that I could also see growing kind of weirdly entertaining. I know I'm a cheap date, but am kind of proud of us America for finding four fucking reasonable, thoroughly centrist, generally qualified, and basically likable candidates this year. let's do dis!