What would first lady Michelle Obama, a mother of two girls, do if she also had a son — or more to the point, a 19-year old international pop star with a penchant for fast cars, private jets and alcohol named Justin Bieber?
“I would pull him close. You know, I don’t know if it would be advice as much as action,” Obama said in a recent interview with Univision Radio host Enrique Santos. “I would be very present in his life right now. And I would be probably with him a good chunk of the time, just there to talk, to figure out what’s going on in his head, to figure out who’s in his life and who’s not, you know.”
And Obama is not the only one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. being asked to weigh in on Bieber’s case.
A petition created on the White House’s “We the People” site calling for the government to deport Bieber and revoke his green card has garnered more than 250,000 signatures — far exceeding the 100,000 signature threshold to require an official response.
“That response will come I’m sure relatively soon,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week.
The petition, which was filed on the day Bieber was arrested for an alleged DUI and drag racing, says: “We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing, Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked.”
Michelle Obama, who was not asked about the petition during her radio interview, was nothing but motherly when it came to the famous wayward teen who could face a trial in Florida as early as March 3.
“I found that to be the case with my kids,” she said. “They just want you near, you know — they want that advice from a parent. They want to see you on a daily basis, you know, because the thing is he’s still a kid. He’s still growing up. So, I would pull him close.”
