Wasn't she lovely?

DENVER -- When Michelle Obama exited the Pepsi Center stage after delivering the keynote address on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?" played.And if the undecided can't answer yes to that question after Obama's prime time speech Monday, well, they may be beyond the reach of that audacious hope of which the Obamas speak.Not surprisingly, critics have dubbed Michelle Obama an "angry black woman," the confining box in which sisters who dare speak out are regularly placed.For saying that her husband's candidacy was the first time she was "really" proud of her country, she was dismissed as unpatriotic.Monday night was her chance -- her last chance -- to put to rest those ambiguous and baseless charges.And that's exactly what she did, burying that nonsense under the poignant details of her life story.No, Michelle does not look like any other woman who has been married to a president of the United States.But her story, she made clear, is an American one. Not a black one, and in fact, Michelle didn't mention race directly at all, and that had to be a calculated move designed to appease those who get nervous whenever the issue of race arises.Her life story -- of a childhood on the South Side of Chicago, of a return from an Ivy-League education to the community in which she was raised, of a romance to a fellow lawyer, of a devotion to her two young daughters -- is rich, not to be muddied with what others might mutter about her.Monday was her time -- and her family's time -- to tell you about the Michelle they know. The little sister, said her brother, Craig Robinson, now a college basketball coach, who would play piano to calm him down before his big games as a teen.The daddy's girl, who even as an adult would sit in her father's lap to give him a hug, who saw the sacrifices her dad made, even as he lived with the pain of multiple sclerosis, to send her and her brother to college.Who now could accuse her of being uppity, when she gave such deferential praise to Sen. Hillary Clinton, her husband's former rival, for the "18 million cracks" Clinton put in that glass ceiling?And she was similarly gracious to the vice-presidential nominee, Sen. Joseph Biden, whom she called a fighter for the little guys.Biden, Clinton, military families, hard-working Americans everywhere, they're all "driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do," she said."That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack's journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope."That's why I love this country," she said, her eyes welling up, the crowd roaring and waving signs with the would-be first lady's first name attached to a plastic pole.In Michelle Obama, we saw Monday that the success that truly satisfies is that of your family."I come here as a Mom whose girls are the heart of my heart and the center of my world ... Their future -- and all our children's future -- is my stake in this election," she said.Lest we get swept up in the high emotion, this is a convention, where everything is scripted and nothing left to chance.But still, knowing the choreography behind it all, when Obama said Monday evening, "I come here as a wife who loves my husband and believes he will be an extraordinary president," you want to believe that the bond she shares with her spouse is pure and true.(Wendi C. Thomas is political columnist at the Commercial Appeal of Memphis)