In Transition

Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that as he thinks about his much-anticipated inaugural address, he thinks about Lincoln's second one. "You start getting intimidated, especially because it's really short," Obama said. "You know, there's a genius to Lincoln that is not going to be matched."

Obama was referring to the four paragraph address in which Lincoln spoke the famous phrase, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in."

"I think that the main task for me, in an inauguration speech -- and I think this is true for my presidency generally -- is to try to capture, as best I can, the moment that we are in," Obama said.

"My focus is to try to be able to describe in simple, plain terms what are the challenges we face, but then also to let people know I have every intention of working with the American people so that we meet those challenges."

As for his daughters, Malia and Sasha, Obama said they appear to have narrowed the choice down to a medium-sized labradoodle (l.) or Portugese water hound (r.) and "we're now going to start looking at shelters to see when one of those dogs might come up."

The daughters started school this week at Washington's Sidwell Friends.

Asked how their first week went, Obama said, "They seemed to thrive. I'm trying to figure out why it is that they don't seemed to be fazed by anything. You know, folks think I'm cool. They are a lot cooler than I am. They just don't seem to be intimidated."