The Other Red Carpet

THE FIRST formal White House event. The Governors Association comes to dinner.

The Ball

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WE ARRIVED at the Biden Home States Ball in plenty of time to see our beautiful new dignitaries. Hubby was providing minute-by-minute coverage of the President and First Lady's whereabouts from back home via cell phone, so James and I thought we had to rush to the ball in order not to miss them, but we didn't.

The atmosphere was joyous and electric. The food was horrible. Pasta. Crudite. Room temperature chicken pinwheels. Where were the crabcakes?

The drinks were expensive but we had too many anyway.

The Vice President and his wife showed up first. Jill Biden worked her red gown. I couldn't stop taking pictures. Half hour or so later, the President and First Lady arrived. To hear "Hail to The Chief" played by the band before he walked onto the stage set my skin on fire. I'd have taken more snapshots, but I was busy shooting video on a digital camera that malfunctioned. Oh, well. The memory of it all is burned into my mind.

We were about 20 feet from the President and First Lady and I can say that Michelle Obama's dress looked much better in person than it does in any photographs. I wasn't a fan of the one-sided top, but she was regal and elegant as always.

President Obama was so close his voice resonated in my body when he spoke a few words to us. A woman behind me kept gasping as though she was going to faint. Cameras flashed like fireworks.

After more drinks, the band Maroon 5 came out to perform. I didn't know it at the time, but hubby informed me that it are one of the favorite bands of my favorite tennis player Andy Roddick.

Without warning, I stopped feeling my legs. I never took the nap I planned after the inauguration because I watched the parade on TV at Marianne's house. Now my body was crashing faster than surf.

How many places a day can go.

I took a few pictures with Jay Carney, the former Time Magazine reporter who'd just been tapped as the new communications director for the Vice President. He was the closest thing to a celebrity I recognized all night.

But I didn't care.

I got to feel President Barack Hussein Obama's voice resonate in my bones.

Previous: The Inauguration - Inaguration Eve

Queen

60 Minutes: Barack and Michelle Obama Give First Post Election Interview

60 Minutes, Chicago, Illinois

(CBS) Since Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States 12 days ago, he has largely remained out of sight, getting high-level government briefings and conferring with his transition team. But he surfaced on Friday afternoon in Chicago, alongside his wife Michelle to give 60 Minutes his first post-election interview.

It covers a wide range of subjects including the economy, the ailing automobile industry, the government's $700 billion bailout program, their visit to the White House, the emotions of election night and the quest for a family dog. You'll hear all of it. But we begin with the president-elect and his thoughts about the new job.

Steve Kroft: So here we are.

President-elect Barack Obama: Here we are.

Kroft: How's your life changed in the last ten days?

Mr. Obama: Well, I tell you what, there seem to be more people hovering around me. That's for sure. And, on the other hand, I'm sleeping in my own bed over the last ten days, which is quite a treat. Michelle always wakes up earlier than I do. So listen to her roaming around and having the girls come in and, you know, jump in your bed. It's a great feeling. Yeah.

Kroft: Has this been easier than the campaign trail?

Mr. Obama: Well, it's different. I think that during the campaign it is just a constant frenetic, forward momentum. Here, I'm stationary. But the issues come to you. And we've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of problems, a lot of big challenges.

Full Transcript

I love this interview. Barack and Michelle are so colored. It seems like just yesterday folks were running round talking about how he wasn't Black enough.

All joking aside, their love for each other and their children jumps through the screen. What an example of strong values the next First Family will be. What a message for all families here and abroad. Already, the world loves us again. With these pure souls as our beacon, that love will only grow.

I'm so proud of our country.

Change Comes to the White House, Meeting the President-Elect

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, have arrived at the White House for a visit, their first since Obama's landslide election victory.

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were at the South Portico of the White House to greet the Obamas on a sunny fall day with moderate temperatures and colorful but fading autumn leaves.

Just a couple moments later, Bush and Obama were seen walking along the White House collonade to the Oval Office.

The Obamas' arrival had the look of a foreign head-of-state state visit, although there were no fife and drum bands, speeches or official pageantry. The Obamas were driven up to the South Portico, where they were welcomed by the Bushes and escorted into the Executive Mansion that they'll call home in a little more than two months.

Don't they look fabulous? I'm still in disbelief.

Michelle LaVaughn Obama, the Next First Lady

EVERYONE knows I love Barack. But I love his wife even more.

A Black woman born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, a descendant of auction blocks and Daughter of the Ghetto, with chocolate-brown skin and wide hips is going to be the First Lady of the United States of America. That completely blows my mind.

Sojourner “Ain’t I A Woman?” Truth is dancing.

The Next First Family

I STILL can't wrap my mind around it, but my heart is bursting. I'll get around to some essays on the enormity of this, but for now, I'm just going to let it all settle in.

Want more? See Zain's Diary.

American Stories, American Solutions

FLAWLESS.

Barack Obama is a great storyteller. That is why people connect with him so deeply. He's an artist. A writer. A man of wisdom.

And that voice.

He's heard from the American people and he our story in his own voice. Round, mellifluous, warm.

He's not a radical. He's a typical American with conservative values. And a great voice.

The biggest success of it all was that this documentary short subject portrayed Barack Obama and his family as the typical American family even as he strives to become president.

The Ford worker reading to his daughter shortly after Michelle told us Barack has read the entire Harry Potter series to Malia was striking. That's only one of many examples, but it was the most powerful.

We live in a patriarchy, after all. And he just told the country that our fathers must do much, much better.

The president, even if a woman, is ultimately the patriarch in chief.

I think he made his case. He showed, as always, that he has the talent and ability and the spirit to inspire a nation.

Now go vote for President Obama.

The New Yorker Endorses Barack Obama

WHO CAN FORGET that controversial cover? That failed attempt at satire that featured Barack and Michelle as terrorist radicals in the Oval Office? (I, for one, prefer the image above. Happy Belated 16th Anniversary.) As much as that cover was a surprise, their endorsement is not. And it's good one. If they want to come for me for posting as much of it as I'm going to post, so be it.

THE CHOICE OCTOBER 13, 2008 Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals? The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor. (...) On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic Party’s nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalized language of “reform,” but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational, and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call—in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—for more tax cuts. Bush’s expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy. (...) Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, “A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.” Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector. On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels. (...) Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international coöperation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation—the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam. The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture, and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern Presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making, and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less—and likely more—overseas. (...) The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern. We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama. —The Editors

Hubby doesn't like it when I refer to Barack as our leader. Says it sounds too militaristic. We haven't had a real leader in so long, that the word itself elicits anxiety. Make no mistake, hubby is a through-and-through Barack supporter and has no doubt he will be a great leader, he's just squeamish about the language.

All leaders are ambitious, and Barack is no exception. But mere ambition produces presidential candidates like, say, John McCain who couldn't care less about the people he wants to lead. After he gets your vote, he's done with you. Barack has deep compassion and genuine respect for the resilient spirit of the American people. He wants more than my vote. He wants my full participation in the political process.

And with all that this nation faces going forward, that's exactly what he's going to get.

I'm happy to call him our leader.

While They Terrorize, We Organize

“BARACK OBAMA can’t do this alone,” said the candidate’s wife, Michelle, during a surprise Wednesday morning visit to a get-out-the-vote training hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus. “For every one of you here, you know good and well there are about 20 people in your life who aren’t registered to vote, who aren’t paying attention, who don’t think it matters. Who would sit it out. Who were disappointed that Barack didn’t say something the way they thought he should have said it. Didn’t make the decision they thought he should have made.

“I’m in this, I’m living it” she added, drawing laughs. “But we don’t have time to get this wrong. If we were in a better place as a nation, we could play that game. We could afford to sit out and protest, and show our discontent. … But see, we’re not. And every year that we wait, every year that we dawdle, every year that we hem and haw is another year away from our children’s future that we take. There’s nothing more powerful than your own voice, talking to the folks in your own community.”

At the same event, former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, who helped Obama with the process of vetting vice-presidential candidates that led to last week’s selection of Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said there are enough Black voters in swing states to help Obama win states that would have put Democratic candidates in past presidential contests over the top.

“The reality is, it is going to be up to us to get our people to the polls and do all the things we need to do to make sure that Barack Obama is raising his right hand on Jan. 20, 2009 … in Washington D.C.,” he said, referring to the date on which the next president will be sworn into office. He added later: “[President George W. Bush] won Ohio by 119,000 votes in 2004. Three-hundred-and-nine thousand Black people did not vote in Ohio in that year,” a number that, in that state alone, would have likely denied Bush a second term in the White House.

::

The entire article is well worth the read, but the above passage lays it all out.

This is what community organizers do. These are our actual responsibilities. This is how we bring about the change we need. From the bottom up.

There are an estimated 55 million eligible but unregistered voters, up to 40% of them are African American, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian American. We need to get as many of them registered as quickly as possible as deadlines are rapidly approaching.

While they spread lies, we organize.

While they hypothesize, we organize.

While they overanalyze, we organize.

While they try to steal the prize, we organize.

While they proselytize, we organize.

While they marginalize, we organize.

While they propagandize, we organize.

While they terrorize, we organize.

Get Up. Get Out. Get Organized.

Conventional Wisdom: Father's Day

THERE ARE TIMES when you just can't put your thoughts and feelings into words because you have been moved too far beyond them.

Last night was one of those times. Michelle Obama (re)introduced herself and her family to the American people in a presentation that made me weep.

Dressed in a stunning green dress, she radiated warmth and poise and grace as she paid tribute to her late father, her own motherhood, and told the nation her husband would renew America's promise and restore her position in the world.

Ignore the cynics on the cable news shows passing themselves off as journalists. Michelle was received with wild enthusiasm. The atmosphere was otherworldly. People drank in her every word like ambrosia. By the time she finished, there was nary a dry eye in the house.

I miss my father. A Tuskegee Airman, a true patriot, as proud of his service to our nation as he was of his family, he passed away a year-and-a-half ago after a long battle with cancer. He always wanted me to get involved in law and politics. Told me that America would never fulfill its promise until the racial divide closed. Thought that when an African American finally ascended to the presidency, the wounds could really begin to heal. But he knew he'd never see it. Never thought his children would see it. Ironically, he passed away in the same month Barack Obama announced his candidacy.

Life had other plans for me. I was called to a different career. But my active support for the leader of a new generation and my entire campaign to get to Denver to nominate this historic candidate is my tribute to my father.

Just as Michelle's father was looking down on her beautiful family, including her brother who shares my name, her mother and daughters, I could feel Daddy's presence in the incredible energy inside the Pepsi Center.

He was also a lover of the Kennedy clan. So to see Ted Kennedy, my senator for the 16 years I lived in Boston, come out and give what will likely be his last Democratic National Convention address, broke the dam wide open. By the time Michelle spoke, I was the grand rapids.

I called my mother in Milwaukee. My father's rock for 61 years, she's still reeling from his absence. But she has relied on her strength and deep and abiding faith to keep on going. We shared a good cry. She never thought she'd get to see a moment like this either.

I still can't believe I'm here.

Crossposted to Kennebec Journal

Rage

SOMETHING happened over the weekend in the political world that has enraged me so much, I can't even write about it here.

But my body feels wounded.

That's all.

The Meaning of Life

THANKS to CNN.com's live video feed I was able to see Barack Obama's town hall in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, and thanks to Political Punch, I'm able to print his great answer to a young man's probing question.

"What does life mean to you?" the man asked, instructing the Democratic nominee that he be as intellectual or spiritual as he would like.

And so Barack answered.

"Oh goodness. What does life mean to me?

"I don't know where to start on a question like that. Let me just say a couple things. Right now what I think about most is my daughters who are 10 and 7. And not that I'm biased but they are perfect in all ways.

"When I was your age, I thought life was all about me. And how do make my way in the world and how do I become successful and how do I get the things that I want. And right now life for me revolves around those two girls. And I think about what kind of a place am I leaving them.

"Michelle and I have been incredibly blessed. As long as God's looking over, my girls are going to be OK. They can go to great schools, will be able to afford college, are in good health and will be well cared for if they ever get sick.

"Are they living in a county where there’s a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day? Are they living in a county that is still divided by race?

"Are they living in a country where because they’re girls they don’t have as much opportunity as boys do?

"Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don’t cooperate with other countries as effectively as we should? Are they living in a country where they are threatened by terrorism and a nuclear explosion could happen in a major American city? Are they living in a country in which because of a lack of sensible energy we are not only ransoming our future, but we’re also threatening the very livelihood of the planet?

"What life means to me is that every day I wake up trying to figure out how can I secure their futures and the futures of all children. How can I make sure that we are giving a planet and a country to them that is better than the one we got? And, you know, so I guess what I’ve discovered is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re somehow giving yourself to something larger than yourself. And that’s part of my Christian faith. It’s also part of the reason I am running for president of the United States."

::

Words from the leader I want in the Oval Office. If he's your choice, why don't you take this exchange, put it in an email and send it to everybody you know. There's no reason that smears are the only emails making the rounds.

Know hope.

‘The Hottest Ring in Hell’

WHEN DID the Democrats grow spines? When Barack Obama became the presumptive nominee. This from Senator Richard Durbin, the man who encouraged Barack to run now instead of later.


Dick Durbin at the Maine State Convention

O'DONNELL (Watch Video): Can I ask you, too, about what Maureen Dowd wrote in today's New York Times about the Republicans targeting Michelle Obama. She wrote: "It's good news for Obama that Hillary's out of the race. But it's also bad news. Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of 'Kill the witch.'" What's your reaction to that?

DURBIN: Well, I know Michelle. She has been my friend and a friend of my wife for many, many years. She can take it. She can handle herself. She is a very accomplished person. But I will tell you this: the hottest ring in Hell is reserved for those in politics who attack their opponents' families. And if there are some Republican strategists that think that's the way to win the election, I think they are wrong.

O'DONNELL: Wow, well, there you have it. That's a line. Senator Durbin, very interesting, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.

A pitbull with geniality. I love it.

Be Not Afraid

HEAVEN is the place where fear turns to autumn leaves, and drifts away.

I haven't been able to blog much. Despite having to focus on my tennis blog and fulfill other responsibilities, I have been left emotionally gutted over the last few days by all the recent talk of assassination. As wish, as hope, as political tactic.

Only when a statesman calling us to repent our wicked ways (yes, I'm going there) wins over the support of millions, awakens the politically cynical to action, and calls upon a revolution through Movement do his foes issue permission slips to the nutcases to go into their basements and closets and sheds to pull out their artillery and grease it up for sport.

It's at once disgusting and heartbreaking. I've been disgusted and heartbroken.

In a murderous time, the heart breaks and breaks to keep from breaking.

But more than that, I've held onto hope. I called up my good friend and spiritual sister Gail and told her it was time to call all the spirit warriors she knew and put them on high alert. The time had come. The people have gotten so afraid they're contemplating murder. As action, as solution, as salvation.

Time for a prayer shield.

On Tuesday, Michelle Obama attended a fundraiser in Phoenix, Arizona, where she was put on the spot. Dawn Teo over at Daily Kos tells the story best:

She called on another supporter, whose voice quivered and broke with barely contained emotion as she explained how important it is to her, personally, that Barack Obama be elected. How important it is to her, personally, that our country change its course.

She was on the verge of tears as she explained that she just returned from Oregon where she campaigned for Obama and attended the 75,000-person rally by the river. She had noticed, she said, that the Secret Service had increased security dramatically for Barack Obama's rallies since the Phoenix rally in January.

The room collectively gasped and murmured, some aghast that these fears were being spoken aloud directly to Barack Obama's beloved wife. Some nodded, concern and fear clear on their faces. Others shifted on their feet, displaying a range of emotions -- concern, discomfort with the topic, indignation -- it is not often that such topics are broached in polite company.

Pulling herself together, the supporter asked,

"What can you tell us..."

and then her voice caught and broke as a sob rose up from her chest. She paused for a moment to quell her emotion, to find her voice again.

"I'm afraid of what might happen. What can you tell us, after last week's comments..."

...another sob broke up her words...

"after last week's comments, to make us feel more at ease."

She cried unabashedly after finally getting out her words.

The room that had been electrified with positive energy throughout the evening suddenly became still and quiet, all eyes focused on Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama's eyes, though, were focused on that concerned supporter. She paused, allowing the clearly distraught supporter to pull herself together. It seemed like several minutes went by, as we all waited, wondering how she would answer this highly personal and evocative question. Probably only 30 seconds went by, but it seemed like several minutes. Finally, she said simply, firmly,

"I'm ok.

"Really. I am ok.

"And if I'm ok, you should be ok."

She paused, then talked for a moment about what this means, personally, to her.

"You know, we talked about this as a family."

She held the microphone with one hand, the other curved inward over her heart as she talked. Her tenor and body language was clear. Michelle Obama was talking as a mother. She was introspective and intimate, looking the questioner in the eyes as if they are the only two in the room.

"We talked about this as a family."

The room remained still and quiet. Imagine having that talk with your children. Then, she paused, gathering herself, pulling herself up, seeming to grow even taller, Michelle, the campaigning wife returns. She says,

"I've talked about this before. Barack is probably safer now than he was before. Kids are dying in the street in our community. They get shot walking to class, sitting in school, taking the bus home. They are dying in the street."

Her eyes roved the audience, and she implored,

"Send us good vibes. Pray for us. Think positive thoughts. But most of all, be vigilant. Be vigilant about stopping this kind of talk.

"It's not funny.

"You don't have to like Barack to dislike that kind of talk. Be vigilant about stopping that kind of talk."

In that moment, Michelle Obama's voice displayed a mixture of emotions. She was talking as a mother of two young girls who need their father. She was talking as a wife, whose love for her husband is plain to see in her eyes. She was talking as a compassionate human being who believes that kind of talk is inappropriate and unacceptable about any political candidate, not just about her husband, not just about the father of her children -- about any politician.

What Michelle Obama says next was powerful. It would have brought the crowd to its feet if the crowd weren't [sic] already standing. She reminded us what we are fighting for, and why it is important to forge ahead with no fear,

"Fear is the reason this country is where it is today. Fear is a useless emotion.

"Don't ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn't.

"Don't ever make decisions based on fear."

Amen. Halleju. Amen.

Who can doubt this family's love for this country? Black people have loved this country even as this country has hated Black people. There are no better patriots.

Barack Obama may have never served his country in uniform, but the recent tenor of this campaign proves beyond all cynical doubt that he is putting his life on the line everyday in order to fight for this country's core values. His wife is no less brave than those sitting at home praying for their husbands to be delivered from evil, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And his children, just as those of the soldiers overseas, know that he may never come home again. Know that if he doesn't, he'll live forever in their hearts as a hero.

Barack Obama received Secret Service protection shortly after announcing his candidacy. Thanks to a desperate opponent in South Dakota, a foolish politician in Kentucky, a hateful newspaper editor in Georgia, and a shameless talking head on Fox News, his protectors are now on high alert.

But we must not be afraid.

We must not be afraid.

We must not be afraid.

What If?

I WONDER how Hillary Clinton would feel if Michelle Obama said something like, "Well, you know, given all that we know and what we've seen of him, I wouldn't have stayed married to that man. He never would have been my husband. After all you choose your spouse."

Michelle Obama In 'Newsweek'

SHE'S READY. And Newsweek magazine has the skinny on Michelle Obama, the extraordinary wife of Senator Barack Obama, in an excellent cover story entitled, "Barack's Rock."

Michelle Obama was never much interested in calling attention to herself. As an undergrad at Princeton in the 1980s, she was interested in social change, but didn't run for student government. Instead, she spent her free time running a literacy program for kids from the local neighborhoods. At Harvard Law, she took part in demonstrations demanding more minority students and professors. Yet unlike another more prominent Harvard Law student who would later take up the cause, she was not one to hold forth with high-flown oratory about the need for diversity. "When [Barack Obama] spoke, people got quiet and listened," recalls Prof. Randall Kennedy. "Michelle had a more modest, quieter, lower profile." Barack won election as president of the Law Review. Michelle put her energy into a less glamorous pursuit: recruiting black undergrads to Harvard Law from other schools. For her, politics wasn't so much about being inspirational as it was being practical—about getting something specific done, says Charles Ogletree, one of her professors. "She was not trying to get ahead."

She no longer has the luxury of keeping a low profile. Now a very public figure, Michelle has accepted the role of aspiring First Lady and the sometimes uncomfortable scrutiny that comes with it. On the campaign trail, she is sometimes slated as the opening act, introducing Barack to the audience. Direct and plain-spoken, with an edgy sense of humor uncommon in a political spouse, she complements her husband's more grandiose style...She wants to change the world, but she also wants to win this thing now that they're so deeply invested. If his loftiness can set him apart from the crowd, her bluntness draws them in...

From the beginning of the campaign, Michelle made it clear to her husband that she would give the effort her all ("We need to be in there now, while we're still fresh and open and fearless and bold," she told Vanity Fair last December), but not at the expense of family life.

...At the meetings, Axelrod and the other aides addressed each of Michelle's questions. "Suffusing these discussions was, if we did it, she and he both wanted to make sure it was consistent with who he is and what he thinks, and wouldn't distort that," says Axelrod. She has expressed fears that the nastiness of presidential politics could wind up sucking the idealism out of her husband, leaving him just another soulless, cynical Washington pol. "Michelle has always been in the camp of, 'Let's not forget what we're fighting for'," Axelrod says. After the meetings, Michelle gave Barack her blessing.

...Part of Michelle Obama's appeal—she routinely draws audiences of 1,000-plus supporters even when she's campaigning on her own—is that she comes across as so normal despite the withering glare of a national campaign. As a political spouse, she is somewhat unusual. She isn't the traditional Stepford booster, smiling vacantly at her husband and sticking to a script of carefully vetted blandishments. Nor is she a surrogate campaign manager, ordering the staff around and micromanaging the candidate's every move. She travels the country giving speeches and attending events (her mother watches the kids when she's on the road), but resists staying away for more than one night at a stretch. When the couple catch up several times a day on the phone, the talk is more likely to be about their daughters than the latest poll projections. Michelle has made it her job to ensure that Barack, who now lives full time inside the surreal campaign bubble of adoring crowds and constant attention, doesn't himself lose sight of what's normal.

Onstage, Obama has introduced Michelle as "my rock"—the person who keeps him focused and grounded. In her words, she is just making sure he is "keeping it real."...She insists that Barack fly home from wherever he is to attend ballet recitals and parent-teacher conferences. When the couple host political gatherings at their home in Chicago's Hyde Park, Michelle asks everyone to bring along their children. To help bridge the physical distance between father and daughters, Michelle recently bought two MacBook laptops, one for Barack and one for the kids, so they could have video chats over the Internet. Last Thursday, she cleared his schedule so he could return home to Chicago and spend Valentine's Day with her and the girls.

Those who know her invariably describe Michelle as poised, relaxed and confident. "There is no difference between the public Michelle and the private Michelle," says University of Chicago law professor David Strauss, who sits with her on the board of the University of Chicago's Lab School. (The Obamas' daughters attend the school.) "There's no pretense."...

...In 1989, she was assigned to mentor a young, unconventional summer associate by the name of Barack Obama. Michelle was unimpressed by the office gossip about the hotshot Harvard Law student, a biracial intern from Hawaii whom she dismissed as "a black guy who can talk straight." But she was disarmed by his confidence. He walked up to her one day and said, "I think we should go out on a date." She resisted, thinking it was inappropriate. She dropped her guard after he asked her to go to one of his community-organizing sessions in a church basement, where he delivered a stemwinding speech about closing the gap between what he called "the world as it is, and the world as it should be."

She was smitten. "I was, like, 'This guy is different'," she says. "'He is really different, in addition to being nice and funny and cute and all that. He's got a seriousness and a commitment that you don't see every day'." She recalls thinking, " 'Well, you know, I'd like to be married to somebody who felt that deeply about things'." At this, she paused for a second. "Maybe I didn't say 'marry.' Scratch that part. It took him a little while." Each of them offered the other something they had lacked growing up—for her, a free-thinking outlook, for him, a sense of stability.

...After she worked for the city for a couple of years, Barack led Michelle closer to community activism. He was on the board of a start-up group called Public Allies, a nonprofit that encouraged young people to go into public service—just the kind of encouragement she felt she had never gotten. The organization needed a Chicago director. The job paid even less than her city post. "It sounded risky and just out there," she says. "But for some reason it just spoke to me. This was the first time I said, 'This is what I say I care about. Right here. And I will have to run it'." (Michelle jokes that she took a pay cut with every new job. The couple finally got out of debt when Barack's book, "The Audacity of Hope," became a best seller.) More recently, she inspired a program to send doctors from the prestigious University of Chicago Medical Center into community hospitals and clinics in poor surrounding neighborhoods...

...In her stump speech, she uses her own life as a rebuke to those who have said that she and her husband aren't ready for the White House. She tells the story of a 10-year-old girl she met in a beauty parlor in South Carolina who told her that if Barack wins the White House, "it means I can imagine anything for myself."

That story, Michelle says, was just like her own: "She could have been me. Because the truth is, I'm not supposed to be here, standing here. I'm a statistical oddity. Black girl, brought up on the South Side of Chicago. Was I supposed to go to Princeton? No … They said maybe Harvard Law was too much for me to reach for. But I went, I did fine. And I'm certainly not supposed to be standing here." Whatever lingering doubts Michelle Obama may still have, moving into the White House would go a long way toward putting them to rest.

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If you want to see that Barack isn't the only inspiring orator in the Obama family, check out Michelle in action.