Laura Bush
First ladies walk a notoriously dangerous line in commenting on national and international affairs, and while her husband was in office, Laura Bush, a former librarian, made the safe issue of literacy her focus. (Michelle Obama’s is nutrition and childhood obesity.) But more recently, Bush has lobbied against the Taliban’s brutality against women, so when the 14-year old Malala Yousafzai was shot in Pakistan, Bush quickly wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, urging everyone to “speak up before these acts occur, work to ensure that they do not happen again, and keep our courage to continue to resist the ongoing cruelty and barbarism of the Taliban.” Bush ended by likening Malala to another famous young heroine, Anne Frank.