米:奥巴马夫人 In 66 days, Barack and Michelle Obama and their daughters 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha will be the youngest first family to move into the White House since the Kennedys nearly 50 years ago.
While the Obama transition team has been working closely with the Bush administration to ensure an orderly transfer of power, the Obama family has been working hard on a transition of their own that began with an emotional election night victory in Chicago.
Steve Kroft: When was the first moment that it began to sink in that you were President of the United States? Do you remember?
记:你是从什么时候开始意识到自己已经成了美国总统了?还记得吗?
Mr. Obama: Well, I'm not sure it's sunk in yet.
奥:这个么,我不能确定到目前为止是否意识到了没有。
Michelle Obama: I guess I'm sort of like him. I'm not sure if it has really sunk in. But I remember, we were watching the returns and, on one of the stations, Barack's picture came up and it said, 'President-Elect Barack Obama. ' And I looked at him and I said, 'You are the 44th President of the United States of America. Wow. What a country we live in.'
Michelle Obama: I told him, 'Good job. Well done.' To walk out there and see hundreds of thousands of hard working folks, because so many people put their energy and their hopes into this campaign. To see the outcome and the emotion, it was a very emotional evening because I think people were ready to take hold of this country and help move it in a different direction and you felt that.
Kroft: The emotion of that night was fueled, in part, by the fact that you were first African-American ever elected. Did you feel that?
记:那晚上的热烈气氛,也部分因为您是首位非洲裔美国总统,变得更热烈。你感受到了这一点了吗?
Mr. Obama: There's no doubt that there was a sense of emotion that I could see in people's faces and in my mother-in-law's face. You know, I mean, you think about Michelle's mom, who grew up on the west and south sides of Chicago, who worked so hard to help Michelle get to where she is, her brother to be successful. She was sitting next to me, actually, as we were watching returns. And she's like my grandmother was, sort of a no-fuss type of person. And suddenly she just kind of reached out and she started holding my hand, you know, kind of squeezing it. And you had this sense of, 'Well, what's she thinking?' For a black woman who grew up in the 50s, you know, in a segregated Chicago, to watch her daughter become first lady of the United States. I think there was that sense across the country. And not unique to African-Americans. I think that.
Mr. Obama: I think people felt that it was a sign of the enormous progress that we've made in the core decency and generosity of the American people. Which isn't to say that there were a number of reasons that somebody might not have voted for me. But what was absolutely clear was is that whether people voted for me or against me, that they were making the judgment based on is this guy gonna, you know, lead us well? Is this guy gonna be a good president? And that was my assumption walking in. And that's how it turned out. And that felt good.
Mr. Obama: Because they had been up until midnight.
奥:因为头天晚上一直到午夜,她们还没有睡觉。
Michelle Obama: They had been up. But we got up and went to school. But we went to school late. Barack, you slept in. You know, so I think we were just back into the routine. Our hopes are to just to keep the girls moving. It's like okay , Daddy's president-elect, okay, we can get to school by 10. And we got to the school and the folks at the school were excited. Some people were cheering as I walked the kids to the class. And I remember Malia saying, 'That's embarrassing.' But you know, it was a pretty normal day for us.
And there have not been many of those. The past two years were spent on the campaign trail and before that Senator Obama split his time between their home in Chicago where Michelle and the girls lived, and a very modest apartment in Washington, which nearly burned down.
Kroft: So, you've given up the apartment in Washington that you stayed in?
记:所以,你到底还是放弃了在华盛顿的那幢公寓?
Mr. Obama: I used to get teased, not just by Michelle, but by my own staff. They'd say, 'You know, you're the only senator that has a worse apartment than your 25-year-old staff people.' Eventually, I think, Secret Service kind of looked at me like, you know, once the building caught fire, and the ceiling caved in, I said…
Mr. Obama: Yeah. That's when I had the car with the-the hole in it.
奥:是。那时我有辆车,不过,车里有洞。
Michelle Obama: And you could see the sidewalk, because the rust had gone through.
米:从洞里可以看到下面的人行道,那洞是生锈造成的。
Mr. Obama: The air-conditioning.
奥:它还有空调呢。
Michelle Obama: So that was my side. I would look and see the ground going past. And I still married him.
米:那空调就我坐的这边好用。我那工夫就看着车下面露出来的路往后窜。后来我居然还真嫁给了他。
Mr. Obama: That's how I knew she loved me. It wasn't for my money.
奥:也正是这样,我就知道,她真的很爱我。并不是冲钱来的。
They got their first look at their new home last Monday, when the President and Laura Bush invited the Obamas to the White House, which has 130 more rooms than that old Washington apartment.
Michelle Obama: Well, first of all, Laura Bush was just so gracious. She is a really sweet person. And couldn't have been more excited and enthusiastic about the tour. So that was wonderful. And her entire team, their team has been working closely just to make us feel welcome. But the White House is beautiful. It is awe-inspiring. It is. What I felt walking through there was that it is a great gift and an honor to be able to live here. And you know we want to make sure that we're upholding what that house stands for. But I couldn't help but envisioning the girls running into their rooms and, you know, running down the hall and with a dog. And, you know, you start picturing your life there. And our hope is that the White House will feel open and fun and full of life and energy.
Kroft: I know that from talking to you, you've said that this has put a lot of, you know, your husband’s involvement in politics has put strains in your marriage from time to time. He's about to take over the most pressure packed job in the world. But he's also gonna be home, right?