WASHINGTON -- As he weighed a shift in his public position on gay marriage, perhaps no one had as much influence on President Obama as his wife, Michelle. 
 
 "This is something that, you know, we've talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do," Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts on Wednesday. 
 
 Even as Obama's position was in a state of evolution, White House advisors said, the first lady went out of her way to invite gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual couples to the events she sponsored for military families. 
 
 
 
 Around the West Wing, there are several gay staffers, and at least one in a committed relationship and raising children. And the Obama daughters have friends with same-sex parents, whom the first family has gotten to know. 
 
 "There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we're talking about their friends and their parents, and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn't dawn on them that somehow their friends' parents would be treated differently. It doesn't make sense to them and frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective," Obama said. 
 
 One day a few weeks ago, aides said, the president told his top advisors that he had reached a personal decision. He wanted to weigh in on the gay-marriage discussion. 
 
 
 
 "He was ready," said one senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the private talk. 
 
 
 
 The account offered by White House aides Wednesday gives the impression of a carefully planned rollout of the president's new view. Before then, the subject was one officials were reluctant to discuss. 
 
 
 
 After Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that he was "absolutely comfortable" with gay couples being married, the White House was at pains to say the comments were entirely consistent with Obama's position, and swatted away questions about new policy that might be forthcoming. 
 
 
 
 Now, following the president's comments, aides say he wanted to affirm the idea of same-sex marriage before the Democratic National Convention. 
 
 
 
 It would be a subject of discussion in platform talks and in private conversation, the president told his team, and he wanted to be in front of it. He also felt it was right to tell the country that he had arrived at a new place before the election, said a second senior official. 
 
 
 
 Advisors tried to game out how that would play in terms of the election: Maybe swing-state voters wouldn't like it, it would suppress enthusiasm among black volunteers or it would turn off evangelical Latinos otherwise leaning toward Obama. 
 
 
 
 On the other hand, maybe voters would give him credit for taking a stand. Perhaps young volunteers and donors would be inspired and energized by the move. 
 
 
 
 There was no way to predict the "crosscurrents," said the second official. 
 
 
 
 The White House team was planning to take more time to lay out their plan, but then the vice president went on "Meet the Press" last Sunday. He wasn't expected to articulate his own view if asked about this but rather to talk about the president's record and evolving viewpoint. 
 
 
 
 Because the vice president knew Obama was ready, a senior advisor said, he "leaned in more than he normally would have" when he was asked about the issue. 
 
 
 
 A day later, Education Secretary Arne Duncan surprised the staff by weighing in with his position in support of same-sex marriage. 
 
 
 
 The two events combined served to move up the timing, and the West Wing reached out to ABC to give the president a chance to say it himself. 
 
 
 
 "He always planned to do it sooner rather than later," the official said. "This just moved up the timing." ||||| WASHINGTON — A few hours before President Obama offered his historic endorsement of same-sex marriage on Wednesday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. apologized to the president in the Oval Office for forcing Mr. Obama’s hand by airing his own views three days earlier, several people briefed on the exchange said on Thursday. 
 
 Mr. Biden declared in an interview on Sunday that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage, a position that went considerably further than the president’s “evolving” views on the matter and scrambled the White House’s carefully laid plans for confronting one of the most sensitive social issues in the election. 
 
 Mr. Obama, in an interview with ABC News, said the vice president had gotten “a little bit over his skis” but had done so “out of generosity of spirit.” The president bore Mr. Biden no lingering ill will, according to several officials, though the episode enraged Mr. Obama’s senior advisers in the White House and on the campaign. 
 
 It was easily the biggest instance of crossed wires between the garrulous vice president and his more button-down boss, in an administration that has been marked by occasional eruptions by Mr. Biden. And its effect was magnified both because it involved a fraught social issue and because it came just as the general election campaign is heating up. 
 
 People who know both men said they did not believe that Mr. Biden had an ulterior motive in pre-empting the president, despite the fact that he has not ruled out running for president himself in 2016. Indeed, several gay rights activists said, whatever affection Mr. Biden’s candor might have won him with gay voters, he would still lag behind other potential Democratic candidates like Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are both seen as champions of the gay community. 
 
 Mr. Biden has said nothing publicly since his remarks on the NBC program “Meet the Press.” But he has told staff members at the White House that he regrets putting the president in an awkward spot, several officials said. These officials declined to characterize his precise remarks to Mr. Obama, or Mr. Obama’s response. 
 
 The White House had planned for the president to endorse same-sex marriage as soon as next Monday, when he was scheduled to give an interview to the ABC program “The View.” Instead, in the wake of Mr. Biden’s interview, the president’s aides hastily scheduled an interview Wednesday with Robin Roberts of ABC News.
– If the United States of America had a nickel for every time its current vice president opened his mouth and inserted foot, we'd all get a trip to Disneyland. But Joe Biden's comments Sunday instead got us President Obama's personal endorsement of gay marriage—yesterday, not at some random point over the summer. The vice president absolutely forced the president's hand in terms of timing, White House insiders tell Politico, and Obama seemed to confirm that in his full ABC interview, aired on GMA this morning. "I had already made a decision that we were going to take this position before the election and before the convention," Obama said. "He probably got a little bit over his skis, but out of generosity of spirit," added Obama. "Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without there being a lot of notice to everybody? Sure," he continued. "But all's well that ends well." Biden "leaned in more than he normally would have," a senior adviser tells the LA Times, but the VP fully knew that Obama's mind was made up weeks or months ago when he spoke Sunday. Coupled with Arne Duncan's unexpected stance on the issue the following day, the White House's careful deliberations on the political implications of a presidential endorsement went up in smoke.