Bill Cosby has been vocal (and blunt) in addressing the problems plaguing the black community, Barack Obama, not so much.

ATLANTA (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama was welcomed with thunderous cheers and told the 550 graduating from Spelman College, an historically black women’s school, that no matter where they go, they need to bring the school’s ideals to the world.

The graduates welled with pride upon her arrival, even as she clapped enthusiastically for their achievements. In Obama, the young women see the essence of the successful, black career women many of them hope to become. But her message to the Class of 2011 of service to others and helping the underserved also reflected her roles as first lady and a major campaigner for her husband.

Obama delivered four commencement addresses this season, and her choices were politically strategic as the president gears up for the 2012 campaign for a second term. She was in Iowa last week and in coming weeks will speak to graduating seniors at Quantico Middle High School in Virginia, to graduates whose parents serve at the Quantico Marine Base. . . .

In speaking at Spelman, Obama talked directly to the members of her husband’s most loyal electorate. Turnout at the polls among black women in 2008 was 68 percent — making them the single largest voting bloc that helped Obama become the country’s first black president and a key demographic as he seeks re-election.

Many in this generation liken the Obamas to the real-life version of the fictional iconic black couple, Cliff and Claire Huxtable, the doctor-lawyer duo who, along with their family, represented the colored version of the American dream. Actress Phylicia Rashad — who played the role of Claire — shared the stage with Obama on Sunday, receiving an honorary doctorate degree.

While she gracefully declined to comment directly on the comparison, she called Obama “a great lady who represents many of the ideals of womanhood as powerful, dynamic, creative and nurturing.”

HT: Fox Nation