Michelle Obama in Target: Does she remember what really happened?

The Sony hack may have spoiled the surprise of the First Lady’s budding movie career.  Bud Fox News has learned that among the studio’s leaked documents are emails from a top movie producer discussing Michelle Obama’s star turn in an upcoming role-reversal remake of Memento, a thriller released in 2000 about a man with no short-term memory who is searching for his wife’s killer.  And if the First Couple’s recent interview with People magazine (to be published this Friday) is any indication, Mrs. Obama must be a method actress already in character because her memory seems to be playing tricks on her.  In the interview, according to ABC News, Mrs.Obama asserted that living in the White House has not completely shielded her from racial slights:

The first lady also described being mistreated at a Target store in suburban Washington, during a shopping trip she took in 2011.  “Even as the first lady,” she told the magazine, “during the wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf.”

In March of 2012, Mrs. Obama told a slightly different version of the Target story during an interview on David Letterman’s Late Show.  Back then the story had no element of implicit racism.  Here’s the earlier rendition:

“That’s my Target run. I went to Target,” she said. “I thought I was undercover. I have to tell you something about this trip though. No one knew that was me because a woman actually walked up to me, right? I was in the detergent aisle, and she said — I kid you not — she said, ‘Excuse me, I just have to ask you something,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, cover’s blown.’ She said, ‘Can you reach on that shelf and hand me the detergent?’ I kid you not.”

As the audience laughed, she went on, “And the only thing she said — I reached up, ’cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down — she said, ‘Well, you didn’t have to make it look so easy.’ That was my interaction. I felt so good. … She had no idea who I was. I thought, as soon as she walked up — I was with my assistant, and I said, ‘This is it, it’s over. We’re going to have to leave.’ She just needed the detergent.”

Clearly the First Lady is so deep into her method acting preparation for Memento that her memory is failing her.  What other possible explanation could there be for her two accounts of the same incident, one a tale of racism, the other a feel-good story?