The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House

by Ben Rhodes

Over the years, much of my authority within the White House was tied to the perception that Obama and I had some kind of “mind meld”—that I could anticipate what he would want to say or do on a particular issue, or that he trusted me to speak for him. There were, of course, enormous differences in our backgrounds, and there was a yawning gulf in our responsibilities. But I did come to see some similarities in our personalities. We both have large groups of friends but maintain a sense of privacy that can lead people to see us as aloof. We’re both trying to prove something to our fathers and were nurtured and encouraged by our mothers. We both think of ourselves as outsiders, even when we were in the White House. We’re both stubborn—a trait that allows us to take risks but can tip into arrogance. We both act as if we don’t care what other people think about us, but we do. Yet these similarities form only a small part of a broader picture—a reality in which I was a junior partner who worked hard to understand what my boss wanted to say and do in the world.