Will.i.am lauds Michelle Obama speech

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — First lady Michelle Obama can count Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am among the admirers of her prime-time address Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention.

“I just love her energy and what she means to young African-American women and just women as a whole,” he told The Hill after a panel on jobs hosted by The Huffington Post. “The strength, the backbone, the vision, the support, the tolerance, you know — I just loved everything she was talking about. Where she was saying we need to go as a country, that’s why I was inspired by her.”

The first lady headlined the opening day of the convention and received an enthusiastic response from delegates on the floor of the Time Warner Cable Arena. She made the political case that President Obama is a kindred spirit for all Americans, and emphasized his middle-class roots in an effort to lure women and minorities to his side.

Actress Rosario Dawson was also impressed, but went out of her way to point out Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, delivered an equally impressive speech at last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

“I thought it was great,” Dawson told The Hill. “I think the same thing about Ann [Romney] — you’re not voting for them, but they represent a lot of the family values … and talk about the character of the men behind them. I think both women have a tendency to speak very competently, very strongly, and they’re both very smart.”