Stephen Colbert doesn’t let any of his guests on “The Colbert Report” off the hook, and he took no exception when Michelle Obama came on his show Tuesday night.

“Everybody knows you and your husband are elitists,” Mr. Colbert said right off the bat. “Tell me about your elite upbringing on the South Side of Chicago. How many silver spoons in your mouth?”

“We had four spoons,” deadpanned Mrs. Obama during her late night talk show debut.

She added: “And then my father got a raise at the plant, and we had five spoons.”

“That sounds posh,” replied Mr. Colbert.

And he continued to flatter the potential first lady at nearly every opportunity.

“You’re a very good-looking lady,” he said, comparing her style to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. (And, we have to say, Mrs. Obama was looking rather chic in a bright blue sleeveless boatneck dress.)

Mrs. Obama, though, did not return the compliments. After imploring Mr. Colbert to serenade her (to make her husband “a little jealous”) — which he obliged, crooning “L is for the way you look at me” — Mrs. Obama said her husband “has a better voice.”



She also used her late-night appearance as a platform to talk about why women voters are turning to her husband. She said that folks who pay too much attention to polls showing Hillary Rodham Clinton with a large percentage of the female vote in Pennsylvania are making “a mistake.”

“Many women like myself who are independent, strong, focused, who care about family values, who know that Barack is special, that he has something unique to offer the country, and that his perspective is really gonna change the lives of working women, he understands because he’s living with me,” Mrs. Obama said.

Mr. Colbert asked his guest if she tires of her husband’s campaign slogans, or if “when he comes home, do you ever say, you know, ‘Right now you’re my husband, and I hope that you will change the cat litter?’ ”

Without skipping a beat, she replied: “What I make sure Barack knows is that ‘Yes, we can.’ ”

What Mrs. Obama will not do, however, is make her own run for president someday. “One Obama in the White House will be enough,” she said. She also said she’s “hopeful” that the Democratic primary will “be over before the convention.”

“The Colbert Report” is filming in Philadelphia this week, ahead of the state’s April 22 primary. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter graced Mr. Colbert’s program on Monday. Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania, will join him later this week.

All in all, Mrs. Obama held her own against Mr. Colbert, throwing in some jokes about her husband’s ears and teeth as the host shared with her some children’s drawings of Mr. Obama. But there was one question she let slide.

“Why would you want to be first lady?” Mr. Colbert asked. “As I understand it, the phone keeps ringing at 3 a.m.”