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Summary
Summary
When Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he also won a long-running debate with his wife Michelle. Contrary to her fears, politics now seemed like a worthwhile, even noble pursuit. Together they planned a White House life that would be as normal and sane as possible.
Then they moved in.
In the Obamas, Jodi Kantor takes us deep inside the White House as they try to grapple with their new roles, change the country, raise children, maintain friendships, and figure out what it means to be the first black President and First Lady. Filled with riveting detail and insight into their partnership, emotions and personalities, and written with a keen eye for the ironies of public life, The Obamas is an intimate portrait that will surprise even readers who thought they knew the President and First Lady.
Author Notes
Jodi Kantor, a New York Times correspondent, is the author of The Obama's. She has been covering the Obama's since 2007.
Jodi began her journalism career at Slate.com in 1998. She later she became the Arts & Leisure editor of the New York Times.
Kantor is a recipient of a Columbia Young Alumni Achievement Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Guardian Review
In her acknowledgments to The Obamas, her account of the first couple's first three years in the White House, journalist Jodi Kantor thanks her New York Times editor for "a four-year conversation about ambition, power, gender and public life". That conversation is, in a real sense, the subject of this book. She tells of interviewing the Obamas in the Oval Office in September 2009, and asking them how a marriage can stay equal if one of the spouses is the president. "The first lady," observes Kantor, "let out a sharp 'hmmmpfh', as if she were relieved someone had finally asked, then let her husband suffer through the answer. It took him three stop-and-start tries." A former White House correspondent, Kantor has interviewed 33 White House sources, as well as the Obamas (although not since 2009 and not specifically for this book). The result is less a biography than an extended profile of Michelle Obama: her husband, naturally, plays a definitive role, but Michelle is at the book's heart. In the acknowledgments, Kantor mentions a woman who "insisted Michelle was perfect and that if I told her otherwise her world would collapse". The woman's world is, presumably, still intact: the Michelle who emerges from these pages may not be perfect, but she is certainly impressive, fully deserving of the admiration she has inspired in so many. The Obamas is not quite a domestic biography, and not quite a political one. It's what might be called a biography of domestic politics: it's about the balance of power in a marriage between two exceptional people; the politics of living in the White House; and the Obamas' efforts to shape US domestic policies. One of the book's effects is thus to reinforce the common impression of a nation, and a White House, focused almost exclusively on domestic issues - the Arab spring is never mentioned, for example. But then a politician like Obama, whose success derives from a cult of personality, is going to find it difficult to separate the personal from the political. Although it gestures back towards each Obama's past, the story really only spans the three years of their occupancy of the White House. Much of the book concerns Michelle's attempts to find a way for the East Wing - as the first lady's staff and agendas are known - to work harmoniously with the West Wing. Kantor's reports of tension and miscommunication between the two staffs have been labelled "controversial" in some of the book's advance press, and the White House has hit back sharply, saying Kantor is "overdramatising old news". But what emerges from Kantor's account is neither particularly controversial, nor particularly dramatic. Anyone would predict a period of adjustment as people unaccustomed to working with large domestic and professional staff learned how to communicate through and with them, while raising two children and oh, yes, running the country. Political aides sometimes swear when they're frustrated, even about the first lady? The famously rancorous and divisive Rahm Emanuel was rancorous and divisive? Astonishing. It all seems perfectly understandable, and the Obamas emerge as remarkably able to control themselves and their teams, and to stay focused on the greater good. That said, there are some memorable anecdotes about Michelle's frustration. At one point the East Wing is described by the first lady's staff as like Guam: "pleasant, but powerless". A schoolgirl says that she'd like to grow up to be first lady, and Michelle retorts, "Doesn't pay much." "She was joking," Kantor comments, "but the message was clear." Perhaps, but it also seems consistent with Michelle's promotion of ambition in young women: suggesting that you shouldn't strive to be first lady when you can strive to be president is not quite the same as merely implying that being first lady is a thankless task. Similarly, when Vogue asked Michelle to pose for its cover, West Wing staffers were concerned it would send the wrong message during a recession, but Michelle was adamant, and explicit about her motives: "I don't have to be on the cover of Vogue wearing something that costs $20,000 . . . There are young black women across this country and I want them to see a black woman on the cover of Vogue." When Kantor does criticise Michelle it is for being too demanding and regimented, as when she explained that she makes her daughters take two sports, one that they like and one that she likes, "because in life you don't always get to do the things you want". "Now, my kids are young, so we'll see if I've driven them crazy," Michelle says, and Kantor adds: "Seemingly to suddenly realise that she sounded like the single most intense mother on earth." The gloss is awkward and overstated, and seems to fall into the trap of Obama exceptionalism, as if everything they do must, by definition, be extraordinary, even when it's wrong. Surely we can easily imagine more intense mothers than this? It is a sign of both Obamas' competitiveness that many of the book's most revealing anecdotes circle around sports. After being embarrassed by a bowling score on the election campaign, Barack practised in the White House bowling alley until he could win; when he organised a basketball match for his 49th birthday, he insisted on a mix of "amateurs, pros and veterans" in each team. The result was that LeBron James, the highest-paid NBA player, was on the third of four teams, and was heard muttering in disbelief, "I didn't get picked? . . . How'd I get on Team C?" Needless to say, politics can never be far from the tale. As Kantor observes, Michelle entered the White House "with her expectations low and then exceeded them; [Barack] had entered on top of the world, and had been descending to earth ever since". Kantor chronicles the list of Obama's defeats at the hands of Republicans, often because he underestimated his opponents. At once naively certain of their rationalism and contemptuous of their views, he failed to appreciate their experience, cunning and ruthlessness. When his first stimulus bill barely passed, with almost no Republican support, Kantor reports a "former adviser" saying, "He really couldn't believe it . . . He seemed stumped, truly stumped." The problem is that "Obama was elected to lead 'a rational, postracial, moderate country that is looking for sensible progress. Except, oops, it's an enraged, moralistic, harsh, desperate country,' one White House official said later. 'It's a disconnect he can't bridge.'" The Barack Obama who emerges from this book is one we've gleaned from other reports: cool and reserved under pressure, but frustrated and increasingly stymied. His impatience and intelligence lead him to patronise his opponents, which has proven to be a strategic error. During the debates over the budget default last summer, he compared the Republicans to children waiting until the last minute to do their homework. As a result, the "journalist Mark Halperin called the president a 'dick' on TV - an unfortunate word", Kantor remarks, "but one that captured some of the prevailing Washington sentiment - and lawmakers seethed at being compared to children". At another point, Kantor notes the Obamas' race has consistently raised questions about whether the president is given the respect due his office and achievements (particularly the notorious incident when Representative Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" at him during an address to Congress), but when it comes to the Halperin quotation, Kantor doesn't ask whether race might have contributed to this kind of public insolence. Certainly many Americans feel the same "unfortunate word" more than aptly characterises George W Bush, but did any journalists feel sanctioned to use the term on TV to describe the holder of the highest office in the land? The question is why this book, now? It is three years into Obama's four-year term; if he succeeds in getting re-elected, it will have been written less than halfway through his presidency. It is a judicious and perceptive book, but it also feels as ephemeral as most journalism, with only the most fugitive references to history. Kantor is not afraid to gently mock the Obamas, or to point out their small hypocrisies, as when she describes their squeamishness about politics: Michelle once told a reporter Barack wasn't a politician, but "a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make a change". This circumlocution, Kantor observes, makes the Obamas "like tailors who call themselves 'garment reconstruction engineers', unwilling to fully acknowledge the business they were really in". The question, for Kantor, is whether Obama will "finally start acting . . . like a politician". But if not being a politician is a weakness, it is also a strength: it is why Obama was able to convince so many people that he was the second coming. Kantor quotes people on Capitol Hill saying that complaining about the way Washington works is like complaining about the rain, but this kind of fatalism is precisely the problem; the inertia caused by systemic corruption and ossification is what Obama was elected to fix. Telling him the only cure is to succumb to the disease is self-defeating; in fact, we might think it a classic no-win. Which is, perhaps, why the country is near a standstill, and the re-election is so much at issue. Ending with the debt crisis makes this book, like this presidency, feel unfinished. That's because it is: we are all awaiting the ending, and the suspense is killing. To order a copy of The Obamas for pounds 11.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Sarah Churchwell Caption: Captions: Impressive . . . Michelle Obama in Botswana, June 2011 It all seems perfectly understandable, and the Obamas emerge as remarkably able to control themselves and their teams, and to stay focused on the greater good. That said, there are some memorable anecdotes about [Michelle Obama]'s frustration. At one point the East Wing is described by the first lady's staff as like Guam: "pleasant, but powerless". A schoolgirl says that she'd like to grow up to be first lady, and Michelle retorts, "Doesn't pay much." "She was joking," [Jodi Kantor] comments, "but the message was clear." Perhaps, but it also seems consistent with Michelle's promotion of ambition in young women: suggesting that you shouldn't strive to be first lady when you can strive to be president is not quite the same as merely implying that being first lady is a thankless task. When his first stimulus bill barely passed, with almost no Republican support, Kantor reports a "former adviser" saying, "He really couldn't believe it . . . He seemed stumped, truly stumped." The problem is that "Obama was elected to lead 'a rational, postracial, moderate country that is looking for sensible progress. Except, oops, it's an enraged, moralistic, harsh, desperate country,' one White House official said later. 'It's a disconnect he can't bridge.'" The question is why this book, now? It is three years into Obama's four-year term; if he succeeds in getting re-elected, it will have been written less than halfway through his presidency. It is a judicious and perceptive book, but it also feels as ephemeral as most journalism, with only the most fugitive references to history. Kantor is not afraid to gently mock the Obamas, or to point out their small hypocrisies, as when she describes their squeamishness about politics: Michelle once told a reporter [Barack Obama] wasn't a politician, but "a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make a change". This circumlocution, Kantor observes, makes the Obamas "like tailors who call themselves 'garment reconstruction engineers', unwilling to fully acknowledge the business they were really in". The question, for Kantor, is whether Obama will "finally start acting . . . like a politician". But if not being a politician is a weakness, it is also a strength: it is why Obama was able to convince so many people that he was the second coming. - Sarah Churchwell.
New York Review of Books Review
WHEN the Republican Scott Brown defeated the Democrat Martha Coakley to win Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in 2010, Michelle Obama was apoplectic. There was no major player in American politics whom Mrs. Obama treasured more than Ted Kennedy. For most of her adult life, wherever he stood on public policy issues, she pretty much stood. The first lady ardently believed that Kennedy's endorsement of her husband for the 2008 Democratic nomination had been a real act of courage, the straw that tipped the scales in his favor against Hillary Clinton. Recognizing Brown's surprise win as a threat to her husband's entire health care initiative (the election cost Senate Democrats their supermajority), Mrs. Obama went scalp hunting. She blamed senior White House officials like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs for the Massachusetts disaster - and her husband for not riding herd on them. "She feels," President Obama sheepishly told aides, "as if our rudder isn't set right." Pointing out such concerns is, of course, the province of a spouse. The difference when a head of state's spouse performs an advisory role is that both the content and its consequences resonate through a lot more than one household. And that's the point of Jodi Kantor's new book, "The Obamas." Call it chick nonfiction, if you will; this book is not about politics, it's about marriage, or at least one marriage, and a notably successful one at that. This is a couple who listen to each other, and no one believes more in America's 44th president than his wife. Last August, at a party for his 50th birthday, Kantor writes, Mrs. Obama toasted her husband for passing the health care bill, appointing two women to the Supreme Court and killing Osama bin Laden. When he signaled for the accolades to be toned down, she cut him off." No, you're just going to stand there and listen," she snapped. "I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you only turn 50 once, so you're just going to have to take it." And he did. Kantor, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times, interviewed the Obamas for a 2009 Times Magazine profile and became intensely interested in the working relationship between Potus and Flotus. Recognizing that most books on the Obama White House have largely been about policy, she sensed an opening. The result is "The Obamas," a dimly controversial palace intrigue that attempts to explain how the first couple's marriage works. "In public, they smiled and waved," Kantor writes, "but how were the Obamas really reacting to the White House, and how was it affecting the rest of us?" A reportorial wunderkind, she had the gumption not only to collect colorful, hard-to-come-by insider anecdotes about the Obamas, but also to venture into the dangerous terrain of psychoanalyzing the first lady. When an amateur puts the powerful on a shrink's couch, following the example of Freud with Woodrow Wilson, the hunches about human nature had better be spot on. Fortunately, "The Obamas" is more Sally Bedell Smith than Kitty Kelley. Kantor interviewed 33 White House officials and aides and cabinet members, to good effect. She reconstructs a half-dozen or so strange, gossipy moments that hardly hold up as serious journalism, but provide insight nonetheless. Mostly, she illuminates, in breezy prose, how the first lady sets the tone and tempo of the current White House. Kantor's admiring portrait of Mrs. Obama, a hug really, shows a marvelous mother, an acerbic political strategist and a strong-willed spouse. It's impossible not to cheer for Mrs. Obama when she takes the West Wing staff to the woodshed for being disorganized and for expecting her to campaign on behalf of "members of Congress she knew little about and might not agree with." Could anyone really pull for the hubristic Emanuel in those square-offs? All I hear is go-get-'em-Michelle. After all, what first lady worth the title wouldn't occasionally war with a bumptious aide deluded into thinking he was in charge of the White House? A few of the anecdotes Kantor includes are riveting. One example is her emotional rendering of just how traumatized the first couple felt after the point-blank shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. Kantor skillfully elucidates President Obama's superb and healing January 2011 speech in Tucson by putting the reader in Mrs. Obama's place as her husband says, "Gabby opened her eyes." The tearful scene is extremely well constructed. As the Obamas have been hoarding their personal stories for their White House memoirs, the American public has gotten only glimpses into their marriage. This chronicle provides a few more, but what we learn we had basically already guessed. Mrs. Obama is the mega-progressive, and her husband the starchy pragmatist who knows how to deliver a thumping speech when he's up against the wall. Mrs. Obama, whose favorability ratings remain high, isn't just the family's hard-nosed gatekeeper. She also serves as the president's "sparring partner, early-warning system, refuge and guardian." With echoes of Jackie Kennedy's style sense, Lady Bird Johnson's green thumb and Nancy Reagan's zealous protection of her family from the slings and arrows of political discourse, Mrs. Obama also comes across as a moral force. If the president is intent on actualizing a third Clinton term, Mrs. Obama embodies the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. The fun stuff doesn't get short shrift in "The Obamas" either: Kantor writes that Brad Pitt fell speechless upon meeting the president, that Mrs. Obama wears $515 sneakers and that White House staff members conga-lined around the East Room at that 50th-birthday party. Then there is Kantor's revelation that the White House tried to cover up a 2009 "Alice in Wonderland"-themed Halloween party, complete with Johnny Depp in costume as the Mad Hatter. Big deal. The White House would have done better not to overreact to such frivolous nuggets of tabloid folderol. Wonderland isn't Watergate. It's somewhat understandable that the first lady wasn't pleased with "The Obamas." It's the same old complaint about the fishbowl: you spend countless warmhearted days with the staff, but one inconsequential disagreement gets blown into a maelstrom. On a couple of occasions, the tabloid scent in the book is so strong that one would be forgiven for thinking Kantor writes for Us Weekly, not The Times. Don't the Obama children have a right to privacy? Thankfully, the vivid prose stays, at all times, free of snark. This allows Kantor to write about Sasha and Malia with a degree of impunity. The author is pretty much a straight-ahead reporter with an ear attuned to verifiable gossip. Mrs. Obama does suffer a few dings and dents, as when she supposedly told the French first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, that living in the White House was "hell" - hardly a strong pitch for reelection. (Both sides denied the story.) But the book is never malicious. The first lady sat down for an ill-advised interview with the Oprah acolyte Gayle King - Winfrey's official best friend - on "CBS This Morning" and tried to discredit Kantor. This excessive counterattack was nastier than anything in the book. Taken as a whole, "The Obamas" is more valentine than vitriol. Consider the poor Clintons, who were served up scalding in books by Christopher Hitchens, Michael Isikoff and R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., among others. Is being outed for having over-the-top holiday celebrations or minor disagreements with her husband's staff, by comparison, really that bad? If the Obamas want four more years in the fishbowl, they're going to have to learn to grin and bear friendly popgun fire from time to time. Otherwise, what happened to Martha Coakley could happen to them, too. Mrs. Obama serves as the president's 'sparring partner, early-warning system, refuge and guardian.' Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University. His latest book, "Cronkite," will be published in May.
