Michelle, Barack Obama: 'Best friends'

by Mark Silva

First Lady Michelle Obama, touring Mexico City on her first solo international trip in her position, was asked if her husband should nominate a woman to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

"I think that he will develop a process, in the same way that he chose the last Supreme Court justice, that is thorough and careful,'' Obama told her interviewer, NBC News' Savannah Guthrie. "I think he did a phenomenal judge in picking one of my favorite justcies, Justice (Sonia) Sotomayor.''

What about the court, generically speaking -- should it be more balanced?

"Diversity in this country is a good thing, whether it's gender or race... that's the world I come from.... The more views and experiences at the table make for better outcomes,'' she said in the interview aired on NBC Nightly News. "But again, this is a big process.''

Yes, she said, she has opinions about this and more, "and I share them with my husband at times, but, you know, I think he knows what he's doing in this instance.''

They talk a lot -- they are "each other's best friends,'' the first lady said. But he has "a slew'' of advisors and takes a lot of advice. "It's not a mystery about how that works. It works the same way as it works in any other household.... I'm a good debater. I've had my share of arguments... But my husband is a smart and open person. He listens to a lot of ideas.''

After listening to advice as well as his harshest critics, she said of her husband's decisions, "He's at peace, because he's going to own the outcomes.''

Obama, who after all vowed to stand by her husband through better or worse, was asked how things have changed, for the better and for the worse, for him as president.

""For the better, I think he has more time with family,'' she said. "Because he works... below the store... that means we have dinner every night, we spend weekends together. When you compare that to the life of a presidential candidate.... this is really good....

""I haven't seen the changes in him for the worst,'' she said. "I think these are difficult times. I think he desperately wants to make sure he is doing the right thing, not what is going to make him popular.... I want a president who is steady and strong and consistent,'' she said, adding:. "He has not flinched, in some of our toughest times.''

Asked about the drug violence that has plagued Mexco -- violence which the former first lady and now secretary of state has linked to American demand for drugs smuggled from its neighbor to the South -- Obama said: "I think there is some mutual responsibility on both sides... The Mexican officials are working very hard to do what they can do on their end.... We as a country need to do more to curtail the demand.''

Close watchers of slips of the tongue will take note that the first lady, when asked about former first lady Hillary Clinton's assessment of the Mexican situation, referred to her as "Mrs. Obama.''

The secretary and president are friends, too, but not that close.