Michelle More likely launched with the idea that she would head somewhere cool with the kids, and an idea popped into her head when she thought of her friend. And very likely she had half a dozen of her personal attendants take care of the pesky details.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet, Michelle made the trip because she wanted to spend time with her best friend, Chicago physician Anita Blanchard, who lost her father this summer.
Why head to Spain to do that? Just fly her in from Chicago. I'm sure you've got a spare bedroom or ten somewhere there that she can use.
Blanchard (who is married to President Obama's best friend, Marty Nesbitt) planned a Spanish vacation with her daughter and invited the first lady and her daughters to come along.
"Hey, my dad died. Let's head to Spain to grieve!"
Michelle, who missed Blanchard's father's funeral in July, agreed and dragged along her 9-year-old daughter, Sasha.
"OK, but I gotta bring my younger daugher. Our whole house and property and everything we hold dear could burn down and Barry wouldn't notice! He's such a bad babysitter."
The first couple's older daughter, Malia, is away at camp.
Yeesh. That's some spendy daycare there, Michelle. Maybe Sasha could help out by offering Anita some advice on grieving, too. Or maybe she could play with some Legos on the floor while you chat.
According to Sweet, one other mutual friend came along with her own two daughters. And according to the White House, all parties paid for their own hotel rooms and personal expenses.
And
The Secret Service booked Her Higness' rooms at the luxury Hotel Villa Padierna, in part because agents could guard the perimeter of the property much better than they could at rival facilities.
"So in part, we had no choice!"
Why did the White House wait nearly a week to get this information out?
Because it took them that long to get over the denial that their only excuse was a total loser?
By simply refusing to comment with any detail on the first lady's trip, the White House gave serious ammunition to a story that probably wouldn't have been nearly as controversial if all the facts had been laid out in the beginning.
Oh for sure. But only among dogs that are blue, dear columnist.
Sometimes it's the first lady herself who makes such media decisions.
And sometimes not. And sometimes the media decisions are made by incompetent
Laura Bush often refused to allow her press office to comment on stories about her or her daughters that she felt intruded on her personal life. But as Sweet notes, first ladies are public figures whether they like it or not.
And just when I thought they had run out of life on the "It's Bush's fault" meme.