Barack, Michelle, Don’t Do This to Us!

Ah, this rumor that’s going around on the Internet! No one wants to believe it, but everyone is afraid it might be true, as much as the couple embodies power, love, glory. …

“They’re the perfect couple; they CAN’T get divorced!” While the rumor spreads, people all over the world are uniting to either deny it or to pray that the feared event will not take place.

The bearer of bad news is the National Enquirer. The controversial tabloid set off a global bomb on Tuesday, Feb. 4: The presidential couple is sleeping in separate bedrooms and “on the brink of divorce.” True or false? It seems that only the Obamas could tell the real story at this point. But the Enquirer thinks that Barack had an affair that Michelle is not ready to forgive, so she decided not to return to Washington after the Christmas holidays, instead staying in Hawaii with her daughters. The Secret Service is supposedly in the process of covering up the incident; the White House tersely announced that “the president simply offered his family an extra week of vacation.”* So, a fishy situation, or a malicious rumor?

The Hollande Effect?

“Ah, dear media, after Hollande, you want to break up the Obama family?” The president’s fans, and there are hundreds of thousands of them on social networks, are outraged by the press. Gala timidly published an article titled “Michelle and Barack Obama: The Divorce No One Wants to Hear About,” and People France is attacking their American counterpart for “wanting to hurt Obama.” “It’s been four years now since the National Enquirer started endlessly publishing separation rumors about the presidential couple,” the Gala article states.

Last December, pictures of Barack Obama taking a selfie with the Danish prime minister had already made it around the world, not because of the exceptional quality of the shots, but because everyone saw what looked like a jealous rage coming from a possessive Michelle Obama. She looked as if she’d had enough of seeing her handsome husband making eyes at Helle Thorning-Schmidt. At least, that’s what the tabloids wanted us to think. … “Nay,” says the photographer, an AFP reporter who assures us that the images were taken out of context and placed in a particular order to support the rumors of Michelle’s wrath.

As Barack’s fans and Michelle’s admirers … we’re a little lost in all this. But one thing is certain: We don’t want to see our friends (even if they are only Facebook friends) separate. That would really be the end of our childhood dreams, the proof that love can’t resist power, that power corrupts everyone, even the best, and that in the end, the worst happens, that Prince Charming can turn into a toad and the adultery fad is spreading across the Atlantic. And we don’t want to believe that, oh no. No “scandal” at the Obama White House! So Michelle, Barack, please don’t do this. Don’t get divorced!

*Editor’s Note: This quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.