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PREACH IT! Angelina Jolie, the world’s second-best celebrity mom? Really?

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Look! A gossip site has released a new best-of list involving celebrities! And we’re entertainment reporters! We LOVE lists! Especially when the lists are about celebrities! Anyway, this best-of list comes to us via Babble.com, and it rates the best celebrity mommies!

Celebrities! Mommies! Lists! Yay!

So let’s take a look at who ranks where. Michelle Obama is No. 1. That’s pretty cool. No complaints there. She has an organic garden in the White House and wants to save all nation’s children from fatness. Let her stay No. 1. But No. 2 -- that honor goes to Angelina Jolie.

Really?

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People love to sing the praises of La Jolie, what with her six-child blended family and the millions of dollars she donates to poor children across this sad, undeserving Earth. But as much as Jolie may love those kids, she also doesn’t hesitate to use them to further her own interests.

Shortly after her split from Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie tipped off the media that she’d be frolicking in a park with then-newly-adopted Maddox. The shots of Jolie, in a modest skirt, helping her baby walk, painted her as an angelic mother -- the first step in her PR transformation from brother-kissing cutter to selfless champion of the oppressed.

Yes, Jolie does donate a bucketload to charity -- a reported $6 million last year -- but she also used her kids to earn some of that cash, not to mention burnish her reputation. It may seem sweet that Jolie’s exclusive first photos of her babies -- such as the reported $14-million shot of twins Knox and Vivienne -- helped the needy. But it also forced a pair of newborn children further into the public sphere. Plenty of celebrity parents work hard to keep their kids out of the media -- and they do it successfully. Jolie, a well-reported master media manipulator, has enough press influence to protect her kids from paparazzi flashbulbs if she wanted to. But something tells us she doesn’t want to, and it has more to do with her, and her image, than the welfare of the kids.

-- Leslie Gornstein

[Note to readers: Our blogging software is a bit glitchy today, so if you are trying to post a comment and it’s not working, try hitting ‘preview’ first and then ‘post.’ Sorry for the inconvenience -- elves are working on it behind the scenes//cdz]

Upper photo: Angelina Jolie hugs her son Maddox while filming ‘The Tourist’ in Paris on Feb. 25. Credit: Lorenzo Santini / Getty Images

Lower photo: Jolie and Brad Pitt walk out of an ice cream shop with, from bottom right, children Zahara, Shiloh, Pax and Maddox, while Jolie was filming in Venice, Italy, on Feb. 16. Credit: Luigi Costantini / Associated Press

Related dispatches from the Ministry of Gossip:

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Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt take the gang for an Italian playdate with Johnny Depp’s family

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt are suing tabloid over breakup story

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie together at the Super Bowl -- everyone exhale! (Except for you women, who don’t like fun)

If Brad and Angelina split, would they be Bran and Gelina?

Haiti quake relief: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt rally behind Wyclef Jean to help; Twitter roster grows

Angelina Jolie gives much to charity, sounds off on fidelity

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Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: Date night at UNICEF

Brangelina and Maddox hit the ‘Invictus’ premiere

PREACH IT! I’ll buy that kid for a dollar, Jennifer Hudson

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