Michelle Obama opts for empowerment over politics

Becoming
 

Michelle Obama

Crown

426 pages; $32.50

For anyone who’s wondering: No, she’s not running. In her new memoir, Becoming — a book whose reportedly enormous advance rendered its contents almost as closely guarded as the bullion at Fort Knox — Michelle Obama puts to rest any speculation about her political ambitions. “I’ve never been a fan of politics,” she writes, “and my experience over the last 10 years has done little to change that.”

Note how she says “the last 10 years,” not two. She emerges in these pages as a first lady who steadfastly believed in her husband’s