Hello and welcome to this late political gab fest, the head made of green cheese episode.

I'm John Dickerson here in Washington by myself. Emily Bazelon is in New Haven.

David Plotz, who is normally manning the host's chair, is stuck somewhere between Philadelphia and Washington on... If he's lucky, I'd say. On some brand of conveyance. We don't, he was stuck in. Why was he in Chicago? Anyway, he was in Chicago, the weather held him back. He had that future tense thing to do. Oh, that's right. Oh, that he's been, yeah, yeah, right. Or was it future or the, anyway, he was extremely busy in the important engagements and couldn't make it for which we're all the lesser.

But don't you feel like you know more about the blow by bill of David's travel day than you do about your own day?

I do. And I'm also slightly glad because I've had to miss a few shows because of travel woes. And there's always no matter how bad you explain the situation, the feeling that people don't really believe you and that somehow it's your fault that you're not where you should be. And so I feel glad that we all share the pain.

But let's stop babbling. And we're going to have three topics today. The first topic is going to be an interview with Jody Cantor, the author of the Obama's, a new book about the Obama marriage, getting a lot of coverage, and we're incredibly lucky to have her here. Then we're going to talk about the New Hampshire primary. The results there, the Republican race, where we go from here. Is anybody else new going to get into the race? Is the Tim Polenti surge going to happen? And then the third topic will be the Supreme Court case. I don't know versus I'm not sure who the other case person is.

Hosanna Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church versus the Equal Opportunity, Equal Opportunity Commission, whatever it's called, the EEOC.

Excellent. And Emily is going to sing Hosanna for us when we get to that topic.

So our first topic is going to be the book the Obamas by Jody Cantor. And amazingly enough, she's here.

And instead of talking about things we know nothing about, well, in this case, we may also be talking about something we don't know anything about. But we actually have the author here who we can ask questions. So our normal level of ignorance is going to be increased. Jody, welcome. Thanks for being here. It is great to be back at Slate. I worked in Slate's Washington office about 14 years ago, and I'm thrilled to be back.

Yes, David wanted to make sure we mentioned that you were an alum. I'm an alum. And I can't, the office, I cannot believe it. We worked in what Jack Schaefer used to call the veal cage.

And now we are in these incredibly swanky digs. So let's start with this. Okay, we're not, we're going to start with your takeaway from this process and this book about this extraordinary marriage. Just start us there. Like the Obamas, what, what do you know about them now after this amazing process you just came through?

Well, the thing I felt like I was really watching in my reporting, which was so dramatic and complicated, was the translation of a marriage into a presidential partnership.

Not that long ago, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama were two pretty regular people in Chicago. Their marriage consisted of them sitting in their apartment,

talking about their ideas, deciding what to do. And now, you know, I watched, I mean,

I've been covering them for five years. So I really watched the big change. When I started, they were Michelle and Barack, and now their partnership is, you know, the word I sometimes think of is supermarriage.

You know, let's talk about the sort of size and span of this thing.

First of all, they've got an east wing and a west wing.

And in my reporting, one of the things I was following is that the

east wing and the west wing didn't always get along so well. Which is traditional in White House.

Traditional, but also in ways like eerily reflective of the Obama marriage and in ways

reflective of the ways the Obama themselves have occasionally been at odds over the years. Then there's the political

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