Dinner gatecrashers were just a footnote: Michelle

In a Wednesday afternoon interview that informally marked the beginning of her second year in the White House, first lady Michelle Obama declared her intent in 2010 to lead the administration’s efforts to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity.

In a Wednesday afternoon interview that informally marked the beginning of her second year in the White House, first lady Michelle Obama declared her intent in 2010 to lead the administration’s efforts to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity.

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She assessed her first year at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and declared herself “pleased.”

Given the opportunity, there’s nothing from 2009 for which she’s craving a do-over.

Not even the state dinner honouring India that was marked by two uninvited guests — and possibly a third — and that has drawn mea culpas from the Secret Service, launched a grand jury investigation and sparked harsh criticism of social secretary Desirée Rogers, whose friendship with the first couple dates back to their days in Chicago.

“The state dinner was an outstanding success. It’s just the follow-up after it. I look at the reporting on the state dinner and go, ‘Is that all that happened? Really?’ Because I sat in a phenomenal dinner where the prime minister and his wife were, felt, so connected to the U.S. and they were so proud to be there.

And the evening was so wonderful and it was so well-orchestrated,” she said.

“For me the other stuff that everyone is talking about is a footnote to what the state dinner actually was. So I wouldn’t do that over.”

The first lady also dismissed the suggestion that the security breach had left her especially unnerved or upset.

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