And you're calling my husband inexperienced?

NASHUA, N.H. -- Michelle Obama, the straight-talking mother-of-two who moonlights as a campaign-trail surrogate for her husband, has heard enough about how Barack Obama doesn't have the experience to be president.

"Barack is one of the most experienced people that we could have thinking about this presidential election," she told a small gathering this afternoon outside a home in Nashua. "And let me walk you through it."

She did -- recounting his years as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, law school professor, state senator, president of Harvard Law Review, and so on.

"The choices that he's made throughout his life, before even considering a run for the presidency, have consistently been, 'How do I give back?''' she said. "The only thing that Barack doesn't have are many, many years in Washington."

Michelle Obama, making her first fall trip to New Hampshire, reiterated the pointed argument her husband made in a speech earlier this week: If he's so inexperienced, why was he right about Iraq and his rivals not?

"Barack Obama, supposedly the less experienced candidate, was the only person who stood out and said, 'This is wrong,''' she said.

Earlier in the day, Michelle Obama sat down with a handful of women in a Manchester cafe to commiserate over the difficulties of balancing work and family. She made clear she views the press as a distraction from the work of courting such voters, even as she acknowledges she and her husband need others to broadcast their message.

"We're going to get rid of these guys and then we can really talk," she told the women, referring to the small press contingent. Then she peered over and said, "See ya."