farmer an absolute buyback right to take his farm back and full title once they could pay off the farm loan. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. a look now at the relationship between president obama and first lady michelle obama. jodi kantor reports on the changes to the couple's relationship as they entered the white house and their effort toss raise their children and balance their personal life against the requirements of their public life. this is about an hour. >> welcome here.o i just want to say especially for the c-span audience onei wa minute about where we are. we're at sixth and i synagogue which was the origin alice reels synagogues the oldest in washington. they moved 2 miles northwest of here and it became a baathist church i believe and was the

baathist church for quite a long time and then it was the congregation decided they would move it and so they were going to solve this building and was going to become a nightclub, and it was immediately as that news came out the great philanthropists said we can't let it become a nightclub let's make a senegal and again. and the refurbished it to it's literally just its original glory based on some old photographs and we were fortunate because my eldest son who is now 20 was the surest bullion 50 years to be bar misfud -- boreman sob and since world war ii to use and we are celebrating those gentlemen and all of the people who brought this back now let's start with today you've written a book

about the obama and is an all admire in book. the administration has i guess disagreed. they have come out with some comments about you. what is it like to be in the upper middle of a political firefight. we are not used to being in the middle of it and what do you make of what is happening? >> it is a little strange to because i have been covering the obamas for a long time and it's a long run about trying to capture the lives of the candidates and especially because the candidates are so restrictive now it's hard to get access to them. one of the ways we learn about them is through their biographies. we delve deeply into their characters and look at the whole person. so this book in a way is an alcove for those stories which i've been doing for years and years and so the goal of this

book was to write about what i would call the big change. when i started covering barack obama and michelle obama they really were barack and michelle. watching these regular people of the united states and what i was seeing is that it wasn't a process that happened on the inauguration day when somebody takes an oath but it's a huge learning curve made all the more dramatic in quote the story because of their freshness to the national political life and also because of the fact that they are the first african-american president and first lady so we see a couple of things happening in this book. we see to people learning to to the partnership which used to be this private thing and turn it into a white house partnership. b.c. michelle obama has a really tough landing initially in the white house and then actually turned it around and then the

third thing in the book is about the most fascinating thing that i find about barack obama which is his struggle with politics. after all these years i still can't get over the fact that the top politician in the country is a really complicated relationship with the business that he is in. so i worked on this book for two years and i published it. the white house cooperated. i've been working with these folks for years. lots of people in the obama circle gave me under views. they knew exactly what they were getting into. they never misrepresent what i was doing and also a fact check in the book was insistent for the publication we published an excerpt in the times on saturday and ran i guess to interesting things happened. the first thing is people started discussing the book without having read the book and that's never really happened to me before because as a newspaper

reporter everybody reads your work in the newspaper and the other thing is that the white house did start pushing back on some really interesting ways. they haven't really challenged the reporting in the book. like i haven't gotten a phone call from david axelrod saying you've got it wrong and a lot of his quotes are in the book. but something that really surprised me happened yesterday which is that michelle obama went on tv and she said, i'm paraphrasing, she said i'm really tired of depictions of myself as an angry black woman and she also protested the portrayal of her fighting directly with rahm emanuel. so that was kind of fascinating to me because the book definitely does not portray her in any stereotypical way. and also i am very clear of the clashes between her and they're really philosophical nature. maybe i shouldn't undercut my own reporting and talk about their differences in the

approach to political life that's really what they were. she did acknowledge that she didn't read the book. so i have to imagine that she is responding maybe to the coverage of the book instead of the book itself. part of the reason i'm really excited to be here tonight is to talk about the actual thing with you and with all of you. is that let's go to that political thing because that is one of the themes running through the book. when theodore roosevelt ran or went into politics everyone around him said you don't want to politics to get that's been these people like us. that is the sort of attitude or the qualms about the politics and the obamas? >> one of the reasons their qualms are important and not just to be dismissed is they are similar to the columns a lot of us have about politics. we all see what's wrong with the political system, what's ugly about it. whether it can really address the social needs and what not, but you know, this is one of the

many things about obama that was such a big aspect in the campaign that ends up being in having the presidency. time and time again sometimes a very complicated ways i found that he has trouble acting like a politician. a book is about the first super bowl party in the white house and he's kind to everybody agrees but he doesn't want -- he's got this kind of principled objection. he doesn't want to be the guy that spending the entire year's super bowl schmoozing and he has this idea that he wants to still hang on to a normal life in the presidency. i watched that report get tested again and again and again to the estimate there is another story in the book which she insists on having dinner every night at 6:30 which means he can't schmooze with others and that is a sort of inevitable side of not

wanting to. the constant theme of wanting to preserve the domestic life as it was to be a full-time? >> not only running but certainly wanting to preserve part of the drama of the situation is that barack obama gets to washington and not only does he have not so much managerial or executive for national security or economic experience but he's also never lived in the same house as his family full-time. the white house which is filled in any way, shape or form like a normal life, but i think the 6:three world and he's obviously willing to misted with his family for important situations willing to miss it two nights a week. i just find in my reporting that the obamas are found to be constantly seeking ways to kind of limit and protect themselves from political life. >> why do you think he ran if he

is ambivalent about politics? >> i think it was a rush decision and a hard decision. his aides say that in the summer of 2006 he was really dismissive they begin to test the waters but when you think about it, the decision making process only went from maybe the summer of 2006 for the fall and what people kept telling him was your time is now. if you miss this window of opportunity you may never get it again. and part of the drama of the situation is that michelle obama is initially imposed because the family issues but in part because she thinks she's worried about attacks from the partners and a couple of years may benefit him and later the chief of staff said to me and i find

her situation at that time so dramatic because the way people describe it is she felt her husband would be an exceptional president and yet she really wasn't sure that was the best thing for her family. so how do you choose between what you might think might be good for the country and what might be good for you? >> they have the same kind of discussions arguments back and forth. >> the physical white house is almost a character in this book. i spent a lot of time describing what exactly like to live there and what the structure is like and all the restrictions. i will admit that is fun to report on and read and that there is a little bit of, you know, exploratory pleasure in getting inside the house, but i think there are also two very substantive things about it and

this to me is the sort of meaty argument of the book which is that the isolation of the presidency has really important effects on our system. one is that it really limits the number of people who are willing to run for office along with all the other factors but the number of people who are willing to go through a presidential campaign and then live this incredibly restricted life is incredibly -- it is pretty small and then the other thing is we consistently see these presidents get cut off in the white house and they all say it's not going to happen to them and it happens to all of them. >> michelle obama is one of the first or certainly is the youngest person to have served in the first lady since the revolution. did she just because of what generation she's from have more being second offensive that is the right word?

>> it's funny because she is such a pupil hillary clinton in that way. in my reporting i found again and again that she and kind if everybody else in the white house had one eye on the hillary clinton situation and also the attack that she went through in the 2008 campaign were really pretty painful to her and everybody around her to be that new to public life and to watch herself caricatured that way was really hard. the twist i think to it though is that what her aides talked about is the traditional nature of the first lady which is so confining at first ends up protecting her a little bit because political life is so scattered and difficult but it's another way of limiting its another way of saying i don't do policy i don't have to be part of the discussion.

i don't want to get engaged in these kinds of debates. i think there's something very protective about the traditional some of that role. now she's playing a much prominent role in that that she won in the first place. >> there are moments enduring of the estimates that she displays and also her ohlman will not devotee there is one episode that you describe where she is wearing a sort of normal shirts to go to the grand canyon and i guess given in the post they made fun of them saying they were, i don't know what peasant shorts are normal short and she wondered if she was letting the team down. how do you sort of weigh the balance of the vulnerability and fierceness that sort of alternates? >> that part of what i have seen i think is so fascinating she, a part of the reason i think that -- let's just vanished the

phrase pingree black woman from the culture modeling from this book but part of the reason i think by the character of her is so wrong is that it misses the vulnerability and it mixes the anxiety and that is the word aids use. don't call her in the recording is. the point in my reporting where i found her really fuming was after the scott brown loss after scott brown victory. the head the senate seat and devastating consequences for the president's legislative agenda and it's all in jeopardy now and she has to issues with her husband's team, one is that she doesn't understand how they could have let this happen. how they could have sort of dropped the ball on the race but the other issue which is more understanding goes i think to the heart of the role that she plays in the presidency is that she's always had this idea that

her husband is going to be a transformative president. she's never liked politics and if you are going to go into politics, you know, you have this lofty vision of where you are going to beat. and the administration in the health care deals like the nebraska one that were unpopular and didn't look that great and barack obama was starting to look like a more ordinary politician and that is really what she was reacting to. as a that is part of why i think the partnership is so interesting. the altar delving into the secrets of their marriage we are looking a provision of the presidency and what she takes him to and the standards that she has and whether they can meet them. does have a philosophical direction that is left or the?

>> that goes to something that you have written a lot about to bid i think that you and michelle obama have something in common. [laughter] >> based on my reading, you put all of your face and government she, michelle to me is the philosophical difference between meshaal and barack obama is that she is always ultimately put stock in the legislative process to get things done in his political career and a very early on goes back to springfield she looks at what was going on in springfield and she says i don't believe that the legislative process can actually produce a kind of systemic change we need in our society. there are a lot of stories we have heard with her just looking at one of the properties in springfield and, you know, good

legislation that, you know, got loaded with political garbage or was defeated in that reason. the interesting thing is she listed in nongovernmental approach working with the community more, working on a sort of partnerships and businesses so part of i think this contrast comes back in the presidency because the president is doing health care reform in the fall of 2009 and is having a hard time with it. he hasn't got the country alone with him it's not as popular as he wants it to be and she starts her own initiative. where does she starred with childhood obesity in mice and what is the end result of eliminating a childhood obesity in america? he would have a much healthier population and he would lower health care cost because you would diminish these diseases like diabetes and heart disease

that, you know, really bog down our health care system and so to me she has got this kind of non-governmental answer to the problem. >> do you think that she is the sort of person who in the middle of the fight is upstairs saying you've got to keep the public auction. [laughter] >> she's not fluent in the language of washington and policy tells and this is where i think the progress of scan take part with her is that she keeps them focused on the reasons he ran in the first place to do big things and the two issues that come up in the reporting is where she really put them against political divisors for health care reform and also immigration reform is to meet

the president was leading at that moment to go into the helicopter and my interview was interrupted as the guy got out and stood at the window just to watch the president's back for 15 seconds and then came back and finished. the story simplifies the love affair the staffers have has this love affair changed them? has the process that they have gone through committee think it's changed them? skillet absolutely as the book is a story of transformation and i think that there's a lot of political education involved and there's a lot of them becoming more sure in their roles and more sophisticated and better attuned to the ways of washington. part of the reason that the obamas were so interesting is

all the reasons they wanted to do things their own way. there was once a barack obama who refused to where the little american flag lapel pin all the time because he said never in these words this is kind of cheesy, right? the was several versions ago. your question about whether the kind of insult or nature of the white house and the difference the staff has for them that i think is an interesting question. with the first lady people in the white house do say that people can be very hesitant to confront her. but then there are people who say, you know, that's completely wrong and as long as you approach things in a really logical way and leave them out, that's fine. >> there's a pattern in every white house that the president is always afraid of

confrontation and the first lady is not. so much so and i agree with you that the history is so consistent. it seems to me -- and there are exceptions here that you almost cannot be president and who is willing to be vigilant and really what track. >> the american media was all barbara bush got the reputation of the timely grandmother. [laughter] this is really sending you back to the archives i have to get a shot out to marjorie williams because her profile of barbara bush in "vanity fair" and he in the bush and administration as

one of the great, great classics of political journalism to me. >> i should mention marjorie williams, she has to collections of books which are available definitely worth reading if you care about this. she walks around the house, certain parts of the house were on record, certain parts of the record. fantastic. the insularity that you mentioned, the role that i think she had no new friends. as the mcginn belonged to both of them and they established that rule in 2004 and then a kind of reiterated that. >> is that a good rule in your view? >> well, we see it benefits and harms on the one hand because it's close nurturing who group

of friends from very similar backgrounds. african-americans from chicago, very similar pattern coming from the working-class families all went to the elite universities and did extremely well and all these people ended up together and really bonded together and of the one hand they had a marvelously protective function for the obama obamas i love hearing the descriptions of the obamas are a difference because the are different they are loose and funny if and they can't stay in public anymore. i interviewed in this group first of all they don't want to talk to the president about the job. they say that the only raise it

when he does. and they also have such a perfect understanding among each other. they are from these really special dhaka rounds and have a unique set of experiences but is almost like the understanding among that group is so perfect that sometimes as a journalist when i talked to them it was almost like they couldn't believe that an outsider could understand them. it does become an issue in the presidency that the president and the first lady are not reaching out more in washington. at least a couple of months ago when i lost track and that is a complicated relationship for a lot of reasons and he. they are a fairly introverted approached the presidency.

what is the relationship between barack obama and hillary clinton mentioned at the birthday party you have a phrase that it had become warmer from what? >> the we the people in the white house is from that relationship is kind of two professionals on their best behavior. there is always the sense that the relationship is actually been barack obama and bill clinton and that especially if you are going to talk about barack obama's objection to politics some of those are his objection to clinton, which he starting back in the 90's in chicago she is a critic of clinton, a critic of the clinton ways of doing things and i think that's part of why the relationship with rahm emanuel

is difficult. would be tempting just to describe it as these totally different guy is who of course very do the work very well in some ways and then have some real complexities to their relationship. but i think that part of it is that he was trained in the clinton white house. that's really where he is from and how he does his business and it is and how barack obama does business. >> if you ever want to see somebody that served in both administrations just say who is smarter and they will answer. i can tell you what they think. [laughter] >> what about valerie jaret? >> her role is fascinating and complex. valerie jarrett is a friend, a mentor that helped them get politically started in chicago and made a transition as the one that the obamas did because she

is a realistic against chicago she had it the government experience and going to be a senior aide in the white house. the theme in this book today is what is public and what is private and the presidency. she is a great -- her role really captures how complicated it is. because of the one hand, she is a senior adviser in the west wing and she has this outreach portfolio of her own. and on the other hand she is one of the president and first lady's closest friends. she often represents michelle obama's views in the left wing. she is also the highest level african-american in the obama senior circles and she's often responsible for matters of race. this is true in the campaign and the white house she is kind of a newcomer to the national politics and came from a very

different perspective. and the -- in my reporting as was seen, the tremendous -- it's funny because some people in washington talk about her as a kind of hang iran and i don't see see her that way because she's given the president and first lady so much i think that she would run in front of a truck for them and she almost seems necessary to this transition that they are going through. i mean, from 2004 to 2008 and they have the daily decisions are almost more than two people can deal with and she's helping them transition. but at the same time, and the west wing she is constantly under suspicion because she is such a close friend and people are afraid she is reporting back to the obamas and say she doesn't, but it's not clear where she is in the system and the fee might think about her

story is important to remember is the president chose to bring her there. so there's this intense follow-up with robert gibbs and she's frustrated at michelle obama and leader says he misdirected his rage and it's really at valerie, but i think part of the real significance of that story is that the president thought that he could have a very long traditional management structure. only a traditional and unconditional management structure, but brought his best friend sort of into the equation and that becomes complicated for all of them. >> you mentioned how indolent they are and maybe valerie jarrett is coming to that. some of them are complete political creatures to get do you think that there is an invisible wall or is their attention or ambivalence between the ambivalent political creatures and the political animals that they have hired to just do the job?

>> why guess part of the answer to me is the change you also written about which is after the midterm elections we suddenly see this white house become so much more overtly political. not that they've ever not been political. we don't want to be naive about it, but the president who early in the presidency wants to be authentic and do things and has this kind of provision for how it's great to be different from other presidents it is a much more powerful politician. we talk about the super bowl party where he doesn't want to schmooze but by the spring of 2010 believe me, he is no water watching the game during these kind of sporting events and even the teams he roots for changes

the first super bowl after the white house pittsburgh, the pittsburgh steelers were playing and he always loved the steelers because of all those great stories about the steelers and from the 70's and the family that owns the steelers campaigned for him in pennsylvania and it's a point of pride for him that he's a real sports fan and he's not going to sign the neutrality. and then we see two years later in the white house after he is beaten up in the midterm that totally changes. he says he's going to remain neutral in the super bowl. and you know, this kind of the game and a loss because of the one hand you see that he is -- he understands this is what it means to be president if you don't want to trash somebody in the football team and then on the other hand there is something very appealing about the old barack obama who doesn't want to get himself over

entirely to this. >> there were a bunch of us sitting with senior administration officials and obama, what he does is comes in in the middle sort of as a surprise as a routine how it's not a surprise. we are having this very high minded discussion about some policy and he comes in like he is going to just kick some ass. [laughter] he's a very competitive -- a very competitive person i've met you give one thing and to ask about is he's also one of the most confident people. i think that i've ever met and my joke is that the word obama will be the measure of unit for self-confidence. [laughter] his obama is 125. [laughter] do you think that that has maintained or do you observe the same thing. >> part of the change we've seen is that there are moments pretty recently, right, where that confidence seems to diminish.

i'm thinking of the debt limit crisis and there's some insight reporting in the book about this kind of sunk the president was in but you saw it on tv. he said these press conferences and he is just so incredibly frustrated with what's happening. and in the meetings he did, you know, he said he was upset about what had happened with the triumph of the tea party and also about -- i think things have changed now but over the summer i think it was really hard for him to deal with the loss of support from 2008 and beginning a campaign that felt so very different and they did say that he seemed kind of sad and he felt really misunderstood. i think part of the question for 2012 that we are all watching is can you sort of a similar to

this and rebuilt the of original vision for what the obama presidency was supposed to be is gone now and he has to come up with a kind of affirmative vision of where he wants to take the country but still is realistic enough to be persuasive. >> uzi process skycam crimber when you started but to see the process of that happening? >> i definitely think that the whole "weekend rate strategy," has restored the white house and also telling a much more coherent story than they were especially economically and was clear that they were by the confusion on the republican field and they're beating up romney behind the scenes seems to have contributed to me if you

have heard really articulate why he wants another four years in a way that's truly stirring and convincing. >> they are thinking about it. [laughter] but i agree with almost point punditry and that is almost complement at the end on this subject. i don't think that they achieved a message that the have and as you write in the book they can't do that again. >> a couple of other subjects one remarkable one is anyone who has any contact with other kids their tremendous kids are untouched by all of this house -- how have they done that? >> well, i think that the sheer force of michele obama's

protective power does have a lot to do with it. she was always intensely committed to motherhood and an intense mother. this was a mom who was like sitting in the soccer stands with a blockade. this is a mom that stood on the sideline and said this is what is going on with the defensive footwork. we are talking abut -- just remember almost everybody who runs for president and their spouses, these people are much more competitive than the rest of us generally, and i think that she's always been a pretty intense mom. but then - when they run the senate campaign and also the presidency, she put the full force on her conviction and personality into making sure

their lives for structured and normal and this is where she comes in, her mother mary ann robinson has refused every media request, obra wanted to have her on and she said no i like being able to anonymously go to the basement on connecticut avenue north of the white house. everybody there thinks another lady who works in the mansion. everybody thinks i housekeeper and she is the first lady's mom and what i found in my reporting is that in a way she has to do that because she is the ticket to freedom. their parents can't take them to get a cup cake in georgetown after school and she's the person who can do that.

>> that's highly disclosed. >> one of the themes running through the story is what shrink-wrap -- luxury whether she should appear on the cover of vogue if there is a story that tells where she's at a soup kitchen handing out things and wearing $500 sneakers from france who buys $500 sneakers, what is that about? does she have a genuine taste for luxury or is it just something that's fun? >> she says a couple of things. what she said to me in chicago when her husband was starting to become famous and she was starting to come to washington she would basically say if i have to go i'm getting a new

dress out of it. and, you know, so i think it is a contents of your pleasure if she is to do this this is one of the fun parts. she has said it looking good gives me confidence to go out in public life and also she is so aware of the power and image in a way that i'm not even sure her husband is and she is highly attuned to both the pressures and the possibilities of being the first african american first lady. what she's up against it so big when she has image problems in the 2008 campaign and she was being caricatured as an angry black woman, the advisers did do able image makeover on her and the way that one of them described it to the leader is they had we are going to make her more like a mom on the cause the show and that line really struck me because i said to myself with a second in this

country are we so low on positives, warm and loving accomplished images of african-american women we have so few famous africans who are not either like sports or entertainment celebrities that they have to haul mrs. cosby who is a fictional character and hasn't been on television for 25 years or something like this is the model they have to turn to. but, so anyway the story is really about her wanting to represent in her younger girls to see an african american woman on the cover of vogue. the fascinating thing is that robert not specifically but with other areas like that he gets so concerned about that because he saw the public resentment about the economy and about bonuses

and he really became concerned about the image of luxury. >> to more topics and then this is equally shallow but this is something i've really always wondered about and you get as close to anybody as i have read and this is about barack obama's actual basketball of devotees. [laughter] you describe it the 49th birthday where he invites light of these nba stars. i'm going to tell your story because i love it so much. they are on different teams the combination of the pro athletes and hangers on and love ron james is on the third saying i'm on the team? who is on a and b. he allegedly -- barack obama allegedly once these people to play as hard as they can. can he keep up at that level a 50-year-old guy? >> she wins the entire tournament.

>> that's not an answer. >> it goes -- remember the story that he told a couple of minutes ago about the time you were in the white house and the guy stood by the president for 15 seconds because he took the proximity it's the same issue because our people treating the president like a normal human being, can anybody just forget that he was president and in that a birthday party i asked michael to help organize the game and i said well, you know, what is the deal with him when in this entire thing because we know that he is a good basketball player. come on, lubber on -- lebron james. it's the president's birthday, nobody is placing that much defense on him etc., etc.. >> the story where john edwards when he was running may be the first time he was from north carolina obviously, and they won

the national championship one year and next year the point guard for the team played him one on one and they told me, you know, i beat him. [laughter] >> no, you didn't come and you did not beat that guy. edwards actually believed him. that always concerned me. and that is the segue into the sort of final subject which is a summation which is really about the people who are in this circumstance and i want to start with edwards because i think that you and i met on a bus on john edwards bus with elizabeth and their two kids you are doing a similar story to visited the was a case that was weird about that episode and i guess it was the second time you ran it is the parents disappeared in the middle of the day and the kids were sort of left. i remember i went bowling with them. so here is the case where you would say that the marriage was all about the public.

and maybe you disagree. this seems to me this is what they are trying not to be. and so if you would just have some thoughts and then we will go to the questions on the floor on the soul of people under the brutality of politics, the publicity, the false universal love. do you think their spiritual lives are still healthy, is there any religion and the spiritual lives we should ask in this room, how do you evaluate that? >> that's a great question because, you know, religion, like marriage, is something that it's become kind of a contest about whether it is the private or public thing for them. when barack obama first ran for president he really put his religionocity out there. in june of 2006 she's making this call to renewals speech telling people he is going to be the democrat who can win over the evangelicals. how is he going to do that?

he is going to write this book and he's going to title it after sermon by his pastor named jeremiah wright. and we all know what happened, you know, how that story ends and so religion is after the jeremiah wright affair, something that they try to kick back into the private sphere. something they discuss a little bit now but not that much and you know they don't want to showcase the washington church that they are going to join. a white house aide said something that really stayed with me. and what he said was once you put some part of your personal life like the religionocity out there for people come and what he meant is when you kind of .. can you ever really truly put it back into the private sphere and what is interesting now that is

happening with the marriage is that they are really putting it out in the public because the president's personal ratings are much higher than his ratings on the handling of the economy, and one of the things that his advisers are resting 2012 on is the appeal of the union and they've learned how to go out there together and do this kind of public political performance together that has an authenticity but is also designed. use of a meeting in the oval office where they discuss it is designed to earn votes. so i think -- i don't know that i could answer it definitively for them but you are asking i think exactly the right question, which is can something be shared with the world so used for political gain and then can you take it back and make it

entirely private again? >> if i could add since i amana opinion writer i personally think that is in the apparel and the second thing i would say is when dwight eisenhower -- >> what is carol? >> putting out to survive on that subject when what happens when they surrender. final thing i will say is one of the -- when the white eisenhower in his last day in office he was asked do you think the press corps has been fair to you and dwight eisenhower says i don't think that there's anything any reporter could do to hurt me and that is absolutely the right attitude. i'm not sure that this is the first president to search the web at night with blogs and the reaction to this book i'm not sure that is the attitude they have taken but certainly one they should take that's quite an ad miring and complicated portrayal. let's go to the floor and if anybody wants to go to the

microphones in the aisle. >> how are you? >> i am great. >> i have a quick question for you. what do you think that michelle will allow barack to do after the presidency? >> that is a fantastic question and i think a real source of suspense because as she has discussed and there is more reporting in the book equal the has been an issue in the marriage. the best question i've ever asked by far as i said to them in the oval office and me and my colleague the help me write this question and says how is it possible to have an equal marriage when one person as president and you can go read the answer in "the new york times" magazine but basically the president couldn't answer the question and he ended up saying my advisers care a lot more what she thinks than what i think. so, you know, i think that there is a real question especially

since -- you know, this is the clinton history, too, that bill clinton after his presidency decided that it was hillary clinton's term. i don't think michelle obama will lever run for public office and my record says if she ever runs for public office i'm going to eat every page of this book. but i do wonder whether in some sense it will be her turn to decide on the next step in their future. >> i reminded of one story in the bush administration at the buckingham palace george w. bush was bored and wanted to sneak around the palace just to check it out. [laughter] and he said i want to sneak this around and laura said don't you dare to move. so he has to decide to while away the president or the first lady? [laughter] >> i was wondering if you could

talk more about barack obama's relationship with a rahm emanuel and how that affects his presidency and now starting off the third chief of staff as the inability to find a chief of staff that may be able to relate in the ability to accomplish things. >> i'm glad you asked in part because i think david house probably his own perspective on this issue and would be sort of we haven't really talked about it but it would be interesting to contrast. so what i would say is that the partnership was always strategic from the beginning. there was never any pretense that these men were exactly alike or had the same philosophies, but the president had a really ambitious legislative agenda and chose an annual in order to pass it. so since the first couple of months -- for the first nearly may be seen nine months of the presidency when the legislation is really moving ahead, you

know, it works pretty well. there are some managerial problems rahm emanuel has pitted he can be quite abusive and there and that's -- that has a real effect in the white house. a lot of the white house aides told me that there were things they just didn't come to him on because they were worried he would blow up on him so it had a kind of inhibiting effect is a manager. also in fairness there wasn't a clear management structure where everybody reported exactly to him and then up words, the real stress comes around the time scott brown wins that seat because even though they squeezed health care through, the obama presidency becomes less like this for word legislative tried and it becomes something else. and at the same time of the midterm elections are coming up and that is putting tremendous stress on the relationship because he had in the chair and,

you know, his life's mission before he became the chief of staff was getting democrats in congress especially in these really kind of competitive districts and keeping these people in congress and yet, you know, in the presidency you kind of have a different agenda. you have to make members of congress take really hard votes. so for example, i mentioned immigration of the subject. one of the really sore subjects between them, the president really wanted to push for immigration reform even though there was no legislation on the table, and that was a really big problem for emanu-el in the summer of 2010 because he was ed acutely feeling these vulnerable democrats, you know, especially in the border states and so the relationship did eventually become quite complicated and strained. david axelrod even by the summer of 2010 fell to that he should

leave. interestingly once emanuel started to run for the mayor of chicago the relationship improved. it was almost like the burdens and the strains of the relationship lifted somewhat. >> i would add our nightmare of having the non-jewish chief of staff is over. [laughter] >> given the setting i'm going to start with a confession i haven't read your book yet. >> we are thrilled to have you here. >> i think to comment on something i've read or heard and that is that you did not interview barack and michelle. >> like every journalist, for every story -- >> is that true? >> absolutely. i interviewed them a bunch of times over the course of writing about them and i had a big interview with them in 2009 and when i started this project leader did with my publisher that i didn't know exactly how

much access we were going to get and i pushed for interviews throughout, and they even jolie said no. about what i really found in the reporting is that their friends were able to tell all kinds of stories the president and first lady just doesn't tell. if you have seen the way that michelle obama gives interviews yesterday was an exception. usually the she does a very limited interview on a subject like childhood obesity for 20 minutes at a time etc., etc., and one thing i feel, i basically write profiles for a living at times and one thing i do believe in very strongly is that you can't practice access journalism meaning you can't let whether or not somebody will talk to you govern whether or not you are going to write about them because none of these candidates for these leaders really want to talk to journalists that much.

fewer of them are getting interviewed and they are giving interviews that are less and less in debt than they used to be. so you can't put the question of whether or not somebody will sit down with you for 20 minutes control the entire story. >> i know you touched on this earlier about how you were surprised on the white house reaction, and, you know, i saw you on the today show and you said they hadn't really disputed any of the facts and since then especially with a halloween party they didn't try to cover it up in that they point to all the media coverage of the party and what not response to that? >> the halloween party situation and the "washington post" act and the degree story about this a day or two ago that was entirely correct. just to give everybody the context, this is in the fall of

2009 it was the first halloween in the white house, and so there was an outside component to the party that was pretty public. it was about a washington area school kids who were trigger trading and the president and first lady were there and there was a court reporter. the thing they kept pretty quiet was the party in sight of the white house, and it was a pretty splashing party. they had tim burton and johnny depp. they were doing their alice-in-wonderland thing and it wasn't -- i think this is an area where the coverage in a way has been distorted because "the new york post" made it seem as if it was this, you know, backing off the kids or something and they were trying to a pretty nice thing like a lot of the kids who were invited for kids of people serving in the military, but the white house was very nervous about anything that was seen as sort of too hollywood or flashy so they kept the inside of the

party very quiet. they didn't distribute photos. they didn't acknowledge the contributions. >> but i think i have read a white house wall where they called it like bostick in wonderland. it was like a spokesperson. >> remember they are responding in part like "the new york post" loves this story and went for it for days and days and days and actually published the top pitchers of the president dressed as the mad hatter. i don't want to speak for the white house, but remember the fact they are focusing as much on that i think or more than they are on what's in my book. >> sort of a reaction to the media. >> yeah. that's what they've said and what people have told me that they are worried less worried

about my book itself than to meet you know, the sort of sensationalized coverage of stuff that i've described. senator just want to announce we have time for about three more so we will do one here. >> okay, great. >> ..

i mean he has been seen as being kind of weak compared to the congress so do you think of that can -- that transformation can happen. >> i think you are asking the right question because i think a very, a very big question i have about this president is how creative his conception of presidential power is. because we know part of the challenges to come up with a more expansive and creative and flexible presidential power and that is part of why this is sort of an unexpected contrast i think that i talk about in my reporting with the first lady because the first lady doesn't have any official power so she had to be extremely creative in a way, in terms of establishing

influence over the public for herself. so i can't answer for you how you can do that but i think you are asking the right question. >> with the's transformation you are talking about, from being very personal and authentic to being more politicized and political as a person and as a politician, do you think that voters as they are today are going to be turned on by that ability to kind of take control or the seeming ability to take control and make change or is it going to sort of alienate the young and maybe apolitical voters that really came to the forefront and his first time around? >> that is a good question because i remember you wrote this column around spring of 2010 when he was becoming much more overtly political and i

can't remember the specific examples you cited that i remember doing the -- when he met -- went to meet with john boehner and he went over to capitol hill for the st. patrick's day luncheon. he told this jolly st. patrick's story about how you know we may wrangle over riches bed at night we are such good friends and i was like wow, like i have been covering this guy for a long time and it kind of doesn't sound like him. and so i think part of what you have to do is find a way to satisfy the political requirements but in a way that is authentic to him and like you say, peels to the people who found him to be an original and unique voice in american political life. >> thank you both are coming. i feel like everyone is almost

asking the question i want to ask. i hope i'm not making you repeat yourself but i also wanted to ask about obama's political instincts because my impression of him and reading about him is he is very intellectual like a law professor and how he approaches policy issues and i was wondering did you also see some stories in the news about questioning what is the obama doctrine kind of looking for a common thread policywise? and so i was just wondering if you could talk about how he, how he approaches policy issues and particularly with his relationship with very politicized aids like rahm emanuel who might be looking more towards the political effect of the issue? >> well, the thing i really saw in the story about immigration reform is about how frustrating the kind of irrationality of politics can be for him, because

like if you, so, the story in the book is that he wants to give immigration reform a push around 2010. he actually gives a speech in july, and emanuel thinks it's a terrible idea for the reasons i mentioned that he really wanted to happen. and you know, it seems not only a series of problems for him. there are a series of problems in the world that have very rational solutions on the table. but those solutions are not happening for political reasons. immigration reform, there has been a consensus in the country for a white, pretty much 10 years about that basically reasonable solution would be to fix our immigration system, basically revamp the system so it's more fair and less capricious, using better enforcement but also allow people to weigh in and a lot of

republicans have agreed on that in the past as well. that it is not happening for political reasons and another example that is totally different i think the israeli-palestinian conflict has the same way, there has been you know a roadmap for roadmap for peace in the israeli-palestinian conflict on the table for 10, 20 years now. navy the border goes here, maybe the border goes here but everybody basically knows, right, what a potential deal with look like look-alike and yet it's not happening and it can't happen for political reasons. you know talking to white house aides and watching the president even talking about that, i think it's really hard for him because he has such an analytical person. he sees the solution to this problem as no mystery and yet somehow he can't make it happen. >> thank you jody. the book is how movie stars shaped american politics and -- "the obamas" and the author is

jodi kantor. >> and thank you david. [applause] >> a quick reminder, the deadline seen for c-span student and video competition. we are asking middle and high school students which part of the constitution is mean to you, and why? >> could you give us kind of an epidemiology for people who may not know the blow-by-blow of conficker? the first half about how, you

talked about it showing up, i guess is john who talked about it showing up but just sort of described the beast. >> the worm itself popped up on billboards as a honeypot and hunting it. when a new piece of malware exists in his space, and a line will pop up on his monitor. there's always readouts defining what this is. one of which is a column which indicates how well recognized this virus is to the major antivirus industry. this one was recognized by none. that's the first thing to get his attention. the next thing that happened was it was replicating so rapidly that within 24 hours it was shoving every other piece of malware out of this honeypot. gonna read out on a screen were conficker, conficker, conficker. is that i literally had nothing else to work on at that point.

what they discovered when they begin to dissect it was that it was very, very sophisticated piece of malware. it was highly encrypted. one of the things that it did which is kind of curious is checked to see if the computer it was about to infect had a ukrainian keyboard and it would sell distraught if the computer did. but basically of course what a worm like this does is penetrate to the core of your operating system, and replicate itself, send out and inspect every other computer on your network or can also begin calling home to a remote control. the remote controller, the way you would ordinarily kill a botnet issued chop off its head if you could intercept that communication. you can effectively kill the botnet. so to prevent that, the worm had an algorithm that generated randomly 250 new domains every day.

so that the botnet strata be done only one of those 250 doors on a given day were as in or if you want to cut this thing off, you would have to shut down all 250 domains every single day forever. and so that was one example of the cunning nature of the thing. tj mentioned in a moment ago began buying up all those domains and putting them on his credit card, which gives you a sense of how ad hoc is ever was to try to stop it. >> before go farther down the path of the worm's evolution from i just wanted to get back to that question, what kind of streets where in. a question for tj. i have a very old e-mail address and i have a filter in front of it. been at once that? [laughter] i think most of the people here know.

>> and since most malware, i take it, is distributed by botnet and in the form of, well, the level of spam is some rough correlation of in the war, the level of malware infection. so i remember about a year ago a large botnet was taken down, and for a while spam fell off. but i have to say that if i look historically at the number of spam messages, it looks like it's probably 10-20% worse than it was before that happen. am i a good indicator of the state of speech it's a perspective situation, right? the operation referring to our -- we kind of sat back and we laugh at some other ports that were coming in. one of them was zero impact on spam. one of them was 5%, one was 10%

and one of them was 30%. we kind of look, what's the real number. we kind determined it was a perspective so called our friends over at hotmail and said it would do anything good for you guys. they said we see a drop off of spam of late .07%. well, i was hoping for a bigger number. the problem is that they have, a lot of the webmail providers have systems in place that prevent sending of spam from non-down. so really they have been blogging a lot a lot of the spam the city already so we had a small impact with hotmail. with other organizations, particularly private companies, they saw a huge drop off because the big spam writers wouldn't be sending enough to hotmail because they knew we were blocking, i'm assuming gmail does the same thing and yahoo!. same countermeasures into. we talk to the hotmail folks and they said they largely manage the spam issue. the thing we saw we were watching our honeypot attempt to send spam outcome him sing it

out to a whole bunch of different domains. we definitely saw hotmail spam leave but that's the and would never make into an inbox because of the children on our side. i don't know what the real number is. i know when we start to look at these things going back to your original question, i look at how many millions of my customers are being impacted by this because if it's running on there, is running something else. just based on are testing. we look at it a little differently. spam gives us cause to see and record courtroom and says desperate and say they are harming us. i look at how me of my customers are being impacted. user to look at it in particular, the analysis showed it would reach out to a piece of infrastructure that we could track so it would attempt to download a patch any very specific way so we are able to fingerprint that. so we know how many machines we were dealing with. one of the criteria we would look at, and the conficker case it was a botnet. how many of my customers are being negatively impact by this

recent malware? so i think the stage is not great on the internet, but i really, the past couple of years have really seen a surge in internet service providers and technology cubbies take more of an interest know that private companies can do more to protect folks. so i think the dark days are behind us. [laughter] >> i need some type of wood. i think we're getting that award is but as we start to really understand that there's more things that we can give them we're kind of coming out of that. and our last conference with about two weeks ago, we had no conferences for like 10 years now. this is a digital -- we are starting to see more people talk about how can we do more operational, how can my company help, how can my company take down? i would love to see spam go away as a distribution mechanism.

from a perspective, there's a certain perspective that shows that might be the case, there might be any change. that we are still in the infancy so we don't know. >> so, this book is a who done it. except i still feel that we don't know who done it. and i just want to check in with you guys to see where we are. your book into a certain point there to the couple things that happen. sort of take me through where the law enforcement aspect of the worm is, and you guys feel you have conclusive sense of who the authors were or are. >> my suspicion is, and i can't say with any certainty, that the authorities do know who was behind it. and i suspect that the difficulty in apprehending them has more to do with diplomacy dealing with a foreign government dealing with foreign laws and police agencies than it does with actually find them. what we do know about the authors of the worm, without having caught them yet, is that

they're tremendously sophisticated programmers. and the reason i use the words, the plural, is it's almost certain that one person because the worm conficker demonstrated such a high level of proficiency in summary different areas that it's literally impossible to imagine that one person would have that level of ability and that level of knowledge in so many different areas at the same time. so the likely culprit is a group, well-funded, probably funded by an organized crime syndicate, who set out to create a very large, very stable botnet which could be used as a platform for all manner of mischief, a moneymaking platform. pic if you look at the yearly indications of how conflict with is being leveraged, its strong ties views, fake antivirus, some