conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Secret Lives of the First Ladies about Secret, Lives, Cormac with the genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Historical.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Cormac O&rsquo;Brian is the author of Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents and Secret Lives of the Civil War. He lives with his wife in New Jersey.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: S. Presidents and Secret Lives of the Civil War. He lives with his wife in New Jersey.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Secret Lives of the First Ladies
  She had never wanted to find herself in this position. Indeed, Nancy had been so apolitical in her youth that she remained strangely ignorant of Eleanor Roosevelt's highly publicized visits to her campus at Smith College. But now many accused her of being the irresponsible power behind the throne. It was perhaps the inevitable result of her unflagging devotion to Ronnie, who seemed to age visibly with every week—Nancy's habit of feeding words to the increasingly foggy-minded president had become legion.
  Fittingly, her beloved Ronnie remained her most important project for the rest of their lives together. Though Nancy wrote her memoirs and continued her campaign against drug abuse with the Nancy Reagan Foundation, her husband's struggle with Alzheimer's disease defined her post-White House years until his death in 2004. Like her husband, Nancy Reagan remains a controversial figure. But of one thing there can be no question: Nancy always placed her husband's welfare and reputation above all things. In that capacity she performed marvelously.
  After her husband entered the world of politics by fighting for the California governorship in 1966, Nancy Reagan developed an unusual method of letting off steam. While taking a bath, she would imagine herself arguing with her husband's critics and developing arguments that would put them in their place. As she debated with herself in the relative comfort of her bathroom, all opposition was emasculated and her husband always emerged victorious.
  President Reagan's signing of the historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 1987 was originally slated to be aired on television during prime time. The first lady, however, insisted on making a scheduling change—the signing would happen in the afternoon, not the evening. The reason was simple: Nancy's astrologer Joan Quigley had informed her that the afternoon slot was a better one, according to the star charts. It wasn't the first time that Mrs. Reagan had relied on Quigley's advice to alter the president's agenda. In fact, the astrologer had long since become a fixture in the administration. The relationship began in 1981 after the assassination attempt on Reagan (an event that Nancy forever after referred to only as "March 30"). Terrified that such a thing might easily happen again, the first lady enlisted Quigley, a San Francisco–based astrologer, to provide whatever "advice" she could about Reagan's schedule—the result was a color-coded calendar that warned of upcoming "good" and "bad" days, hours, etcetera. Mrs. Reagan took pains to conceal Quigley's influence. When calling the White House switchboard, for example, the astrologer was instructed to refer to herself as "Joan Frisc." The whole thing became an embarrassment when it came to light late in the administration, but hey—the Quigley connection served its original purpose: Reagan was never assassinated.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me four more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Well, not quite. In fact, many Arkansans had some bones to pick with the governor's wife. Bill was a native, but his wife was anything but—and she seemed to play the outlander a bit too well. She hadn't taken Clinton's name, for instance, a fact that made her look like some sort of feminist (no!). Moreover, she displayed a galling habit of going without makeup and showing up in frumpy dresses and big glasses that made her look like a crunchy freak—or, worse, some sort of carpetbagger come to preach the liberal gospel to the uninitiated. When Clinton lost his bid for reelection in 1982, his wife took it as a clarion call for change. Both of them immediately began working for his gubernatorial return in 1984, but Hillary went the extra mile by getting contacts, styling her hair, and replacing her decidedly unpopular duds with business suits.
  Whether because of Hillary's makeover or not, Bill got back into the governor's mansion and wouldn't leave until becoming president in 1993. As for Mrs. Clinton, she began performing her old trick of working for her husband and herself at the same time—and doing both rather well. The governor made her chair of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, in which capacity Hillary proved a canny legislator and efficient manager of change. But she was also bringing in more bacon than her important husband by continuing in her law practice and serving on the boards of companies like Wal-Mart. With the added responsibility of raising her daughter, Chelsea, born in 1980, Hillary had truly become the ultimate multitasker.
  And one of her many tasks was coping with her husband's monstrous libido. Bill had proven incapable of resisting extramarital temptations even before they were extramarital: He was cheating on Hillary before they were married. That Clinton didn't even have the decency to be cautious about it simply made things worse, and not just because of the inevitable humiliation. Hillary had her eyes fixed on the White House as assuredly as Bill had, and his reckless womanizing was creating unnecessary trouble. The result was a promise by Clinton not to... er, screw up anymore and an effort on both their parts to perfect their marital image for the 1992 presidential race.
  There was trouble nevertheless. When more allegations about Clinton's philandering became public during the campaign, he and Hillary decided to squelch the crisis by making a television appearance to convince the nation of their marital solidarity. "I'm sitting here," said Hillary to the cameras, "because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through." The spot worked for the most part, though Mrs. Clinton's insistence that she wasn't "some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette" invoked the wrath of the country-western singer for what she considered a misinterpretation of her lyrics. Hillary had run into similar trouble when she replied to questions about her obvious influence by saying, "I suppose I could have stayed at home and baked cookies," inspiring a firestorm of criticism from those who thought she was smugly insulting full-time homemakers. All in all, it proved a challenging campaign for both Clintons.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Well, not quite. In fact, many Arkansans had some bones to pick with the governor's wife. Bill was a native, but his wife was anything but—and she seemed to play the outlander a bit too well. She hadn't taken Clinton's name, for instance, a fact that made her look like some sort of feminist (no!). Moreover, she displayed a galling habit of going without makeup and showing up in frumpy dresses and big glasses that made her look like a crunchy freak—or, worse, some sort of carpetbagger come to preach the liberal gospel to the uninitiated. When Clinton lost his bid for reelection in 1982, his wife took it as a clarion call for change. Both of them immediately began working for his gubernatorial return in 1984, but Hillary went the extra mile by getting contacts, styling her hair, and replacing her decidedly unpopular duds with business suits.
  Whether because of Hillary's makeover or not, Bill got back into the governor's mansion and wouldn't leave until becoming president in 1993. As for Mrs. Clinton, she began performing her old trick of working for her husband and herself at the same time—and doing both rather well. The governor made her chair of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, in which capacity Hillary proved a canny legislator and efficient manager of change. But she was also bringing in more bacon than her important husband by continuing in her law practice and serving on the boards of companies like Wal-Mart. With the added responsibility of raising her daughter, Chelsea, born in 1980, Hillary had truly become the ultimate multitasker.
  And one of her many tasks was coping with her husband's monstrous libido. Bill had proven incapable of resisting extramarital temptations even before they were extramarital: He was cheating on Hillary before they were married. That Clinton didn't even have the decency to be cautious about it simply made things worse, and not just because of the inevitable humiliation. Hillary had her eyes fixed on the White House as assuredly as Bill had, and his reckless womanizing was creating unnecessary trouble. The result was a promise by Clinton not to... er, screw up anymore and an effort on both their parts to perfect their marital image for the 1992 presidential race.
  There was trouble nevertheless. When more allegations about Clinton's philandering became public during the campaign, he and Hillary decided to squelch the crisis by making a television appearance to convince the nation of their marital solidarity. "I'm sitting here," said Hillary to the cameras, "because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through." The spot worked for the most part, though Mrs. Clinton's insistence that she wasn't "some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette" invoked the wrath of the country-western singer for what she considered a misinterpretation of her lyrics. Hillary had run into similar trouble when she replied to questions about her obvious influence by saying, "I suppose I could have stayed at home and baked cookies," inspiring a firestorm of criticism from those who thought she was smugly insulting full-time homemakers.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Around this time, following the death of both her father and a close friend from college, Michelle started to rethink her own career path. She opted to leave the world of corporate law and dedicate herself to public service. She took a job in the Chicago mayor's office and then in the city's office of planning and development. In 1993, she became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago, a nonprofit program for young adults pursuing public service jobs. For the next three years, she worked with students from all walks of life—from Ivy League graduates to high school dropouts working on their GEDs. The experience proved so rewarding that Michelle started a similar program at the University of Chicago in 1996.
  Over the next few years, the Obamas concentrated on balancing work and family obligations (daughters Malia and Sasha were born in 1998 and 2001, respectively) with Barack Obama's burgeoning political career. Michelle Obama was an avid campaigner during her husband's unsuccessful 2000 run for the U.S. House of Representatives—even though she claimed the only part of the experience she enjoyed was visiting voters' houses and picking up interior decorating tips. After Barack Obama electrified the convention in 2004 and subsequently won a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, buzz began to build about a possible run for president. Michelle made it clear she was on board on one condition: that Barack quit smoking. He agreed to try, and on February 10, 2007, she joined him on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield for his campaign kickoff announcement.
  In the end, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and Michelle Obama became the nation's first African American first lady. She was not, contrary to popular belief, the tallest. At 5'11", she was an inch shorter than her sorority sister Eleanor Roosevelt. As first lady, Michelle vowed to make advancing the cause of military families her first priority. She was also keen to serve an important role-model function as "First Mom." To that end, she invited the self-styled "First Granny," her mother Marian Robinson, to move into the White House and help care for her children. If nothing else, the arrangement seemed likely to supply late-night comedians with endless opportunities for mother-in-law jokes at the first family's expense.
  It's become fairly commonplace for incoming First Ladies (and presidents, for that matter) to undergo full fashion makeovers before they enter the White House. Michelle Obama took her style overhaul to a whole new level during the summer of 2008, when she asked her Chicago-based makeup artist, Ingrid Grimes-Myles, to lower the arch of her eyebrows in order to make them appear less "angry." Over the course of the presidential campaign, Michelle's critics had complained that she came off as belligerent on camera—a possible byproduct of her extremely angular brow. "When she started getting that feedback—I have a rule," said Grimes-Myles. "When three or more people give you feedback, that means hundreds are talking about it—then what I began to do is bring them down and train them down."