PHOTO CREDIT: Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS

To be sure, the applause for First Lady Michelle Obama was rapturous when she walked out onto The Late Show With Stephen Colbert stage Monday night.

When it finally ended, Colbert said, “George Clooney didn’t get that. You’re the biggest superstar we’ve had on the show so far.”

“It’s an honor to be here,” said Mrs. Obama, dutifully.

She was wearing black pants, heels, and a strange peplum top, with Picasso-like painterly scrawls and streaks of color splashed across it. It looked like a fussily designed child’s bib.

As shown in his interview with Donald Trump last week—which culminated with Colbert apologizing to Trump for making fun of him for so many years—Colbert was again on his best, almost too-obsequious behavior.

We had been warned before he took over Letterman’s chair that the Colbert of CBS late night would be different from the “Colbert” of The Colbert Report, who was an act. Of course he would be different, he would be more “himself.”

Colbert fans may be missing Colbert the “act,” on the strength of his blunted political-world interviews so far.

With Mrs. Obama, Colbert chummily noted that the last time they had seen each other was at a state dinner for the French president. He hadn’t heard much from her since then, the host deadpanned.

Well, he’d been busy, had this new show to do, and she really liked his wife, Mrs. Obama deadpanned back.

The story went on and on—of interest only to them.

Colbert has joined the establishment: When any interviewer seeks to ingratiate themselves with their interviewee above their job of asking questions, digging for dish, or at least talking about things a watching audience might care about—when they lapse into anecdote-sharing about their glamorous world—the nation rolls its eyes as one.

Anyway, it turned out Colbert and Mrs. Obama were sitting next to each other at the state dinner, and his wife told him not to blow it by being ill-mannered.

He hoped he hadn’t.

No, Mrs. Obama said, he was charming. (Yes, really, mwah, mwah.)

The French president had a lot of “debonairness” in such a small package, Colbert said.

“You said that,” said Mrs. Obama, smiling but aware that one false verbal move could and would be used against her and her husband in the roiling, toxic Petri dish of the Internet.

If he was obsequious, she, while warm, was wary of treading on any sensitive ground. The closest they got was when Colbert asked Mrs. Obama if there was anything left on her “bucket list” before she left the White House.

“Girls’ education is the kind of work Barack and I want to do long after we leave the White House,” she said. “I also want to do things like open a window. I want to go to Target.”
The audience laughed.

“I can’t open windows,” Mrs. Obama said. Her security detail gets nervous if one of the car windows suddenly goes down. As a treat, she was allowed to have them open five minutes before arriving at Camp David one day.

Laura Bush had left her a letter, Colbert said. If we have a female president next, would Mrs. Obama leave her husband a letter?

Mrs. Obama said she would.

“I would say, ‘Follow your passion, just be you,’” she replied very safely.

“I think he does,” Colbert said, to roaring laughter from those imagining Bill Clinton’s famously philandering past.

“I think he would,” she replied, flashing a smile at Colbert and chuckling as he clenched his fist in a display of mock-virility.

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SOURCE: The Daily Beast, Tim Teeman