KEY POINTS:
Demands by an American President for a nasty foreign regime to change its ways or step down are nothing new, these days.
But when the First Lady sets aside her presumed role of supervising placements at White House state dinners and airing platitudes about women's causes, to launch a media blitz against a brutal military junta, then eyebrows are raised.
And so it is, as Laura Bush conducts her own diplomatic offensive against the indubitably unpleasant Government of Myanmar.
In the aftermath of the crackdown on protests that had been led by Buddhist monks on the streets of Rangoon, Laura Bush has been ever more visible and vehement in her denunciations.
The other day, the BBC found itself invited for a rare interview with the First Lady on that subject.
Yesterday, her campaign took on even larger dimensions, with a Bush article in the Wall Street Journal and a simultaneous front-page interview with the country's biggest selling newspaper, USA Today.
"First Lady: Burma has days to act", screamed the USA Today headline. Her tone in the Wall Street Journal was no less trenchant. "General Than Shwe [the leader of the junta] and his deputies are a friendless regime," she wrote. "They should step aside to make way for a unified Burma governed by legitimate leaders."
Yesterday Anita McBride, Bush's chief of staff, explained that, for several years, the First Lady had been deeply concerned by events in Myanmar, after having read Freedom from Fear, written by Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country's democracy movement who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years.
"Ms Bush wants to use her platform as First Lady," McBride explained.
In USA Today, Bush, who seemed the embodiment of a demure former librarian and teacher when she moved into the White House in 2001, admitted that initially she expected her role to be "totally domestic". On Myanmar, "my influence is really in being able to shine a spotlight on human rights situations that I want the American people to look at".
Her chief of staff insists that concern extends to US allies as well as enemies. Bush will also have something to say during her upcoming visit to traditional US friends in the Middle East and Gulf.
Bush is far from the first presidential spouse to speak out on foreign policy. She cites the example of Lady Bird Johnson, another activist First Lady who once noted that "although elected by one man only", a presidential spouse, if she wanted to use it, had a very effective public podium.
And many have, most notably perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt among 20th-century First Ladies. Others before and after have left their small diplomatic marks, such as Edith Wilson who accompanied her husband Woodrow to Europe for peace talks after World War I. More recently, Rosalynn Carter represented the US at a summit with Latin American leaders. Hillary Clinton created waves in 1995 by rebuking China for its record on human rights in a speech in Beijing.
Laura Bush's interventions make eminent sense. The rarity of a First Lady's embrace of a foreign cause lends impetus.
While her husband's approval ratings plumb depths, she remains popular. After Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq war and the controversy over US torture, George W. Bush's credibility on human rights has been damaged.
Laura Bush's public involvement with the democratic cause in Myanmar began last year, when she led an international meeting at the United Nations on the crisis. Now, and thanks largely to prodding by Bush, the UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari will soon be returning to Myanmar. Bush also indicated that her husband will soon be imposing tighter US Government sanctions, if the junta does not heed Washington's warnings.
The Independent
