Michelle Obama & Oprah Winfrey @ Time 100 Most Influential People In The World Party Photos

THE journey from campaign life to White House residency marks the change of a lifetime, they say, and now it is the turn of Michelle Robinson Obama -- once of Chicago's working class and later of the Ivy League - to see it.

Last year, it was high school auditoriums and rubber chicken dinners for her -- and a remark about being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life that her spouse's adversaries promptly pounced on.

Last night, Michelle Obama became something very different, the main ingredient in a weird celebrity casserole. In Manhattan's Time Warner Center, she was touting an official White House program with a $50-million price tag. It seemed to fit the general frame of a first lady's duties.

In black evening dress adorned with long black-and-white necklaces, she gave the now-familiar grin and you could hear a slight giggle as she started.

As the president's ambassador to this celebration of celebrity, she spoke of her husband's program to help promote national service and advise nonprofit groups. The White House Office of Social Innovation and Participation will coordinate efforts to help identify "best practices" and to "think about service in new ways," its promoters say. It was approved by Congress in a new national-service law. [NEWSDAY]