Barack Obama, his wife Michelle, and his daughters Malia Ann and Sasha all sat down for an adorable interview with Access Hollywood. They are sitting in, perhaps, some sort of backlot western town set. Someone named Maria Menounos is being all Access Hollywood-y at them. But still, in the 30s seconds of interview available so far, we have to admit that we don't hate Barack Obama's kids. They're making fun of his ratty old clothes, all sitcom-like! This celeb media offensive seems to be paying off. Maybe Michelle should become a Best Week Ever talking head or something next? Hooray for no substance! Clip after the jump.

In this slow time of year in which there is no news—when even gossip mavens themselves are arguing that celebrity gossip is dead—could Barack Obama be the unlikely savior of the celebrity media complex? The candidate and his wife are on the cover of Us Weekly, and an insider tells us that the gambit "paid off" in terms of sales, even beating out some of the magazine's Britney Spears covers on the news stand. We also hear Obama covers have performed strongly across the board for magazines in more weighty categories. And now Versace is dedicating her new men's collection to Obama. Your next president: almost as significant as Lindsay Lohan. Click through to see five more glamorous BarackOmania covers, wow!!

GOD JUST EVERYONE LEAVE HER ALONE OMFG [AP]

It's the official meme replacement for "the internets," "series of tubes," etc. and has to do Michelle Obama's angry, fictional rant against the Mayonaissians. [Wonkette]

Michelle Obama went on The View yesterday to soften her Fox News-propagated image as a whitey-hating terrorist baby mama, but the appearance is only making the cable pundits talk about her image problems more. Exhibit A: Michelle Bernard said on MSNBC's Hardball that the makeover is needed "so people aren't terrified thinking this black woman is going to be doing God-knows-what in the White House." Bernard is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, so it would be a stretch to lump this comment in with all the recent racial smears against the prospective first-lady, but it does beg the questions, some posed by an astute email tipster: Just what, exactly, could Michelle Obama do in the White House? Install a mosque? Fill it with purple leather couches and tiger-printed throw pillows? Change the tap water with malt liquor? Clip after the jump, plus a look at the cringey promo for this episode of Hardball.

• Charlie Sheen is sorry to black people for calling his ex-wife Denise Richards a "f—king n——r." He's especially sorry to "Tony Todd, an African-American, who was my best man at my first two weddings." Ha! Richards, with whom Sheen has been bitterly feuding, doesn't get an apology, and can presumably just "f—king" deal. [Us]

• Sean Avery's Vogue internship is over. (That was quick!) But he's hoping Anna Wintour will invite him back next summer. [People]

Boy, you just know that when you see the headline "RACE-CARD JOKER DUG OWN GRAVE" above that photo of Post columnist Andrea Peyser that you are in for a treat. And she does not disappoint! Former Mets manager Willie Randolph, see, was whiny and overpaid and complained far too often that people were racist to him. When he was asked why the Mets own cable station was so mean to him all the time, he foolishly said something about how black people are held to higher standards. Or, as Peyser puts it, he "channeled Jesse Jackson and stabbed at the heart of fans, colleagues, and the entire colorblind game we call baseball." Ha, we forgot that professional sports is a post-racial utopia where white fans, owners, and media figures don't consider black athletes to be ungrateful overpaid savages. This all raises a question that the media's been really into tackling lately: why are black people so angry? In the attached clip, the noted racial experts at Fox News attempt to find the answer!

Michelle Obama's team is desperately counteracting the "angry black woman" role Republican commentators have cast her in, with strategies like today's guest appearance on The View during which she demonstrated what a warm and chummy everywoman she really is. Republicans will continue to take their swipes at Mrs. O., of course. But she may not have to worry about her fashion judgement getting called into question, as she's getting one of the best weapons any high-profile woman could ask for: Andre Leon Talley wants to take control of her wardrobe! As the fashion industry's sole African-American superstar, the Vogue editor-at-large clearly considers it his duty—his right!—to decide how the hopeful First Lady should dress. He'll no doubt do a fine job, assuming he doesn't go all Jennifer Hudson on her. One small caveat, ALT, if we may: We know you're fond of turbans for yourself, but perhaps that sort of thing should be avoided for Michelle—it will only lead to all manner of silly misintepretation!

Michelle Obama, loving and chronically sarcastic wife to presidential candidate Barack Obama, is co-hosting lady show The View today. She opened by terrorist fist-jabbing all her co-hosts! She is smart and funny and friendly and regular, and none of that will stop people from calling her a constantly aggrieved radical or whatever. Though between today's hosting duty and her US Weekly cover, she's obviously on a charm offensive. For the first time in our adult life, we're proud of daytime television and tabloid magazines.

• Republican-leaning movie star Bruce Willis opened a yuppie-friendly wine bar in the East Village, which prompted protests from neighborhood lefties and counterprotests from the Young Republicans. Turns out? He's not a partner in the bar, he just lent his name as a favor. Because, you know, wine, action movie star Bruce Willis — the connection is obvious. Plus he totally made those wine cooler commercials in the 80s. [Observer]

Well, you can't say the National Organization for Women didn't warn you: Barack Obama might be leading a campaign for change but, judging from a story in this morning's Times, Michelle Obama will be forced to bend to established patriarchy just as would-be-first-lady Hillary Clinton did 16 years ago. The Times writes about how Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, is known for bridging racial divides with bold, frank talk. "Her style is still to say: 'Hey! I'm going to tell you where I stand, and you figure out where you stand,'" said a former illegal immigrant who started a Chicago school with Obama's help. But American is scared of smart, mouthy ladies, so the Obama campaign is giving Michelle a makeover to make her far less interesting:

The fabricated non-scandal of Michelle Obama purportedly calling Caucasian Americans "Whitey" has had at least one benefit: it's opened the door for a discussion of how poor the slurs addressing white people really are. Christ, how is it fair that there are perfectly terrible, accepted slurs for damn near every minority, but not for white people? We're the ones who are actually evil! Writing in The Root, Kim McLarin points out that nobody even says "whitey" any more (if they ever did). But there aren't any good alternatives. Unless you come up with some, for the sake of equality:

Next Tuesday won't be the most lucrative fundraiser of the Obama campaign, but it might be the most glam. Calvin Klein, Anna Wintour, and Andre Leon Talley are chairing a fundraising event for the campaign, An Evening with Michelle Obama. Naturally, the aspiring first lady will be the main event, not her (occasionally sartorially-challenged) husband. But Michelle seems to have already made a deep impression on the fashion set: Talley and Hamish Bowles (who shares Miche's passion for purple) took time to lavishly praise her faux pearls, Jackie O. dresses, and Azzedine Alaïa belts in the Times last weekend. The $1,000-a-head fundraiser will take place at the Sikkema Jenkins gallery on West 22nd Street. Feeling especially generous or social climby? The standard $2,300 will score you a one-on-one photo with Mrs. O, and $10,000 will get you an invite to dinner at Calvin Klein's triplex on Perry Street.

On June 18, Michelle Obama will be on daytime lady talk show The View, and not as some piddling guest, either, as producers originally proposed: The prospective first lady is going to be a full host, just like Cindy McCain, except unlike Cindy she's widely expected to call Barbara Walters "whitey," curse and burn an American flag. As a full host, Obama will get "to help interview guests and participate in the opening 'hot topics,' or banter about what's in the news that day," and also shift uncomfortably as her randy co-hosts ask about husband Barack and his, uh, physical fitness. I guess this is Michelle Obama's big chance to prove to prospective Barack supporters that she's not the crazy, mouthy free-thinker she's been made out to be. Just like a certain other would-be presidential wife had to do 16 years ago. How far we've come. Michelle should totally show up in a burka. After the jump, how the View ladies welcomed Michelle's husband.

The rumor that the Republican Party has a tape of Michelle Obama railing against "whitey" in Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church apparently surfaced two weeks ago on No Quarter, a blog operated by Larry Johnson, a self-described former CIA analyst and supporter of Obama's Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton. No evidence has emerged to corroborate the wild rumor, but Fox News went ahead and aired the charges on camera today. The justification?

Note to America: Michelle Obama is not in New York. Whoever sent in yesterday's Michelle Obama sighting to Gawker Stalker was incorrect. She was not in New York and "she has Secret service now so she does not enter through front doors," according to one emailer. Elitist. Anyway, Michelle's communications director wrote in last night to ask us to pull that sighting down, "as it is creating GREAT confusion." The truth is we are not sure how the map works and are unable to pull anything down from it. But we are still sorry about confusion. Shame on you, anonymous Gawker Stalker who submitted the sighting. By which we mean, obviously, Maureen Dowd.

Now that he's the presumptive nominee, Barack Obama no longer has to attract voters with meaningless pleasantries and promises of ponies. No, now he's free to switch to real talk. No bullshit. At his Saturday rally in Oregon, Obama told the United States to stop whining and go on a goddamn diet: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," he said. But we want to drive around eating corn all day! Can we at least continue criticizing your wife for hating America? Apparently not, as we learned on Good Morning America. Clip of that attached.

Michelle Obama has been upgraded from "regal" to "cool" in the New Yorker's profile of the next First Lady. She says "freaky." She says "Oh shit" about Obama Girl. Basically she's normal, which isn't news except no one else seems willing to come out and say it. In fact screw "which president would you rather get a drink with." I'd rather get a drink with Michelle Obama, and maybe laugh at the slick-hair stripey-shirt guys next to us, and then get in a fight with them in which she'd have to do all the fighting, and then go to another bar to make fun of more people. That's really what it comes down to: Michelle Obama makes fun of people. And that is cool.

When last we heard about Michelle Obama, she was merely (and repeatedly) "sarcastic." Now, though, she rapidly transforming, before our very eyes, into anti-American. Or at least uppity. The problem? She's too proud of her husband and not very proud of her country.