Email hoax: Michelle Obama Requires More Than 20 Attendants

[Lasher]

The claim:

First Lady requires more than 20 attendants

The Queen and her court!!!

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession. Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary. How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Miz Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q. Public:

1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary)
4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)
5. Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
6. $90,000 - Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)
8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)
9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)
10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)
14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)
15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)
16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)
18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)
21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
22. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)

There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came from the President's own pocket.

Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom travelled aboard Air Force One to Europe .

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652

And the rebuttal:

Here's a list of George W. Bush White House staff:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2007/whsalaries.htm

Here are the fifteen of them with 'first lady' in the actual job title:

McBride, Anita B. Assistant to the president and chief of staff to the first lady
Harder, Cherie S. Special assistant to the president for domestic policy and director of project of the first lady
Niemiec, Sally M. Press secretary to the First Lady
Miller, Sonja M. Deputy chief of staff to the first lady
Ballard, Deanna M. Director of scheduling for the First Lady
Underwood, Carrie P. Deputy director of policy and projects for the First Lady
Wallace, Charity N. Director of advance for the First Lady
Marshall, Misty C. Director of correspondence for the first lady
Etter, Marisa L. Deputy director of scheduling for the First Lady
King, Kristin N. Deputy director of advance for the first lady
Lineweaver, Lindsey Special assistant and personal aide to the first lady
Rawson, Kimberly D. Executive assistant to the chief of staff to the First Lady
Donoghue, Tarah C. Deputy press secretary to the First Lady
Vogel, Campbell B. Deputy director of correspondence for the First Lady
Block, Jonathan F. Assistant press secretary to the First Lady

What a surprise! There were fifteen staff White House staff members with 'first lady' in their job title under Laura Bush - just like under Michelle Obama!!!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. What is "canadafreepress", some kind of wingnut blog? A lot of this kind of stuff is coming from

that site.

[Lasher]

2. That appears to be an accurate description of the website.

It's unusual for one of these obfuscations to have any links at all but there it is.

Edit: FYI, I cross posted this in the Propaganda Debunking group.

[HughMoran]

4. Yep, they're wacked-out right-wing psychopath morons who are to be ignored

They're fucking idiots.

[Jennicut]

6. Yup....always has been. I have mistakenly gone there once.

Yuck.

[stuball111]

7. Canadian Freepers...

Yep, they got em up there too.. they imitate the ones down here is all... they'd shit on their own flag for a buck!

[MidwestTransplant]

3. Those Obamas are so uppity.

[nini]

5. why doesn't it list salaries on the Bush side?

:rofl:

[Lasher]

10. Want to see something really good?

When I received the email in question, after having found no rebuttal at Snopes or the other usual sites, I ran across one of the most awesome smackdowns I have ever seen at this website. Our hero, kmv, is but one against several in this rightwing discussion, but (s)he still has them outnumbered. Laura Bush staffers' salaries are listed there on page 2, BTW.

This was the source of my inspiration when I put up the OP, hoping to help other DUers in their replies to the same email.

[nini]

15. LOL

KMV has more patience than I do :-)

[Lasher]

16. And check it out, it was the admin of a Christian website (they don't lie, ya know) who posted this.

Here is the first part of their registration agreement:

Please read the following carefully and scroll down to submit your registration.

You agree, through your use of Grace-Centered Message Forums, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive...

http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=d8f5faa5b4a0dfda3aca0108a3579887&action=register

I noticed at the end the wingnuts still didn't take accountability.

[47of74]

8. My response...

[Lasher]

9. Ha ha ha, that's better than mine!

Gets right to the point.

[LeftinOH]

11. A quick google search of the names on that list all reference rightie websites

- but Snopes has nothing about this (yet).

[MadHound]

12. Well, hoax is the wrong word

Since, after all, it does appear that she does have a large staff. Apparently a number of these staff picks were reported earlier
<http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/01/more_michelle_obama_staff_appo.html>

And I do think that it's a valid question why does she need a staff this large, since after all First Ladies previous to Laura Bush got by with far less of a staff than both Bush and Obama. And it does send the wrong message in a time of both recession and huge national debt for the Obamas to be packing in this kind of bureaucracy.

[Lasher]

13. No, hoax is accurate.

The allegation is clear:

There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady's social life.

This is an obvious attempt to portray Michelle as uniquely excessive, which a charge clearly based on a blatant lie.

Now that this has been established, you allege that all First Ladies prior to Laura had far less staff. I'm skeptical of your claim, and offer this to justify the sentiment:

Hillary Clinton broke tradition even further: the President gave her an office on the second floor of the West Wing itself; her staff of twenty (plus another fifteen interns and volunteers) was divided between a suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the traditional locus of the East Wing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_First_Lady_of_the_United_States

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. I've watched this a time or two.

Democrats try to govern and do the public's work. They get ridiculed by the corporate powers that be for something silly... say a killer rabbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

Then Republicans come in with the lowest possible expectations. They do 100 moronic things, only the top one or two getting any attention. Stuff like, say selling missiles to the people who are shooting them at us, or hiring a guy as interior secretary who says stuff like "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand"

In the fullness of time, Democrats come back. In order to begin doing the public's long-neglected work, they jettison the top 95 stupid things, but are then criticized for the five most benign questionable things which actually were carried over from the previous administration. Remember "travelgate".

There is no way to make these fuckers shut up, so the best option left is to be bold. So long as people are talking about healthcare, they can't perseverate on stupid shit.