Ultimately, President Obama had one reason to quit smoking: his daughters.
In an interview with iVillage, first lady Michelle Obama said her husband decided to finally kick the habit because he didn't want to tell daughters Malia and Sasha not to smoke while he still puffed on the occasional cigarette or two.
"They are at the age now where you can't hide, it's clear," the first lady said in the interview, sitting in her East Wing office with her feet kicked up on the couch. "He would have to start having those conversations because we discuss all the time ... we talk about drugs. We talk about sex. We talk about smoking. We talk about it all."
She said that when the topic turns to smoking, "we're very clear. It's not good for you. It's addictive," and that the president used himself as an example.
"But I think he didn't want to look his girls in the eye and tell them that they shouldn't do something that he was still doing," she said. "So they played an important role in him finally saying, 'I've gotta get this done' ... he credits them with that."
The first lady said that it's important for her and the president to be "honest and open" about their imperfections with their daughters, to show "we're not perfect adults."
The sit-down with the Internet site comes on the heels of other lighthearted interviews with the Obamas — including with
People magazine and on "Entertainment Tonight" — aimed at highlighting their relatability. A new NBC-
Wall Street Journal poll shows that Obama leads Romney by 35 points — 58-23 — on the question of who's more likable.
