Michelle Obama in Russian: to decline or not?

Michelle Berdy is an ex-pat Moscow-based translator and interpreter who has a weekly column on translating Russian in the Moscow Times. In today's column, she talks about declining foreign women's surnames (last week she did men's):

"Finally a question I can answer, since Michelle Obama is my тёзка (someone with the same first name) and I have a non-Russian last name. Most foreign women's surnames and first names don't get declined. I am Мишель Берди, and the U.S. president's wife is Мишель Обама, regardless of whether we are being seen, given something, accompanied, written about or possess something. So the proper response is: Я видела Мишель Обама (I saw Michelle Obama)."

I question this.

I've seen her surname declined in Russian press a lot - such as this from Rossijskaya Gazeta:

"Во время беседы обе женщины приблизились друг к другу, и королева Елизавета слегка приобняла Мишель Обаму, показывая ей свою симпатию."

or from Korrespondent.net

"Бицепсы Мишель Обамы стали фетишем"

or NTV "Мишель Обаму признали «иконой стиля» на самом высоком модном уровне." or Izvestia

"Вызывающую всеобщее восхищение Мишель Обаму в первый раз раскритиковали."

or GloMu.ru

"5 фактов о Мишель Обаме"

Or this from Novosti

"Лора Буш поделилась с Мишель Обамой советами по выживанию в Белом доме."

Just Google "Мишель Обама" and you'll get hundreds of hits in all declensions. (Google's nice about ignoring declensions, allowing to get all the contexts where a word shows up in Russian.) Berdy's right about her own name, of course, but she says "Women's Polish or Czech surnames ending in -а" get declined and only those. In my experience, any woman's name ending in -A gets declined.