People who face too many demands - two careers, two children - often scale back somehow. The Obamas scaled up.

Michelle Obama has gone from political skeptic to political partner to a woman with a White House agenda of her own, and an approval rating higher than the president's.

The prospect that I could actually be a journalist triggered a 'Who do you think you are?' reaction in me. It was only in going to law school and being unhappy there that I realized that I really, really had to try it.

I guess there were things about the Obamas I discovered that I do think are universal to marriage. I found it very interesting in my reporting that their most difficult periods in the White House almost never seemed to coincide. When one was down, the other one was holding it together. In my experience, that's true of marriage generally.