Michelle Obama on the media’s distorted portrayal of black Americans:

As we’ve all said in the black community, we don’t see all of who we are in, in the media. We see snippets… of our community and distortions of our community,” she said. “So the world has this perspective that somehow Barack and Michelle Obama are different, that we’re unique. And we’re not. You just haven’t seen us before.”

On how war is strain on family values:

“All of our emotional and financial resources… as a country have been totally put into the war. We haven’t talked about the domestic issue in about 10 years,” she said. “There are no serious conversations about health care or education, or child care, or minimum wage. I mean, these are the basic issues that eat away at the family structure. So you can’t just tell, you know, a family of four to suck it up and make it work.”

On her marriage:

“I don’t want to paint some unrealistic picture of who we are so that in the end, when it falls apart and if we haven’t lived up to this unrealistic expectation, people feel let down in some way,” Obama told anchor Robin Roberts. “This is who we are. I’ve got a loud mouth. I tease my husband. He is incredibly smart, and he is very able to deal with a strong woman, which is one of the reasons why he can be president, because he can deal with me.”

[ABCNews]