In their Michelle Obama piece, which is titled, “The War over Michelle,” Time’s Nancy Gibbs and Jay Newton-Small note that conservatives and some others “hear ‘whining’ from a woman preaching a ‘Gospel of Misery,’ about everything from her student loans to the high cost of piano lessons,” and other “deteriorating conditions.”

They point out: “They are probably right that most Americans have a happier impression of the past 40 years. But the skies have darkened in the past year … Those who hear Michelle in person often talk about feeling that they are seeing for the first time a political figure who understands what their lives are really about.”