There's a good Michelle Obama interview over at Salon.com

[ClarkUSA]

She may be too authentic for Maureen Dowd, but the bold and plain-spoken candidate's wife has made doubting Iowans into believers.

Obama is by no means the only presidential partner shaking things up out there. We're living in the Wild West of educated,
professional, outspoken political spouses; in a post-Hillary, post-feminist nation, the ladies and gentlemen hitting the trail are not armed with
recipes and decorating ideas, but with Ph.D.s and presidencies on their résumés... But Obama's particular impulse -- to reject meaningless
political pablum or helpmate hokum in favor of unexpected candor and a good laugh -- has already distinguished her yearlong tenure on the
presidential campaign circuit.

"You've never seen anyone like us before, and that's a little freaky, isn't it?" she asks the crowd of grown-ups who've assembled at the Monticello
library after the bangito conclusion of "Skippyjon Jones." "It's like, 'They're real!' Well, guess what? Real people can be politicians too. We as a
country have grown suspicious of real. We take the fake."

<snip>

At the senior center in Davenport, they're thrilled to hear about hanging out with her. She receives a chorus of affirmative "Uh-huhs" after nearly
every statement, and when she's finished, the crowd of geriatric fans swarm her, putting her on the phone with their loved ones, having her pose
with toddlers, the arm of a stuffed monkey draped around her neck. Sixty-two-year-old Mary Anderson, retired from Ford Motor Credit, tells me,
"She reminds me of Jackie Onassis. She's a dignified, high-class lady."

<snip>

When I tell Michelle over lunch about my surprise that so many people who apparently have nothing in common with her manage to see themselves
reflected in her, she looks utterly unsurprised. She nods, and swallows her bite of cheeseburger before saying, "That's what I've been saying. They
see beyond the surface to the core. They know we're real. We are so close to each other." Here she makes a small gesture with her forefinger and
thumb, a gesture that reminds me -- in tone and content -- of Bill Clinton, who has taken in recent years to holding forth on how genetic research
has shown us how much biology all human beings have in common, regardless of their outward diversity.

Read the whole story at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/28/michelle_obama/