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

by Ben Rhodes

We prefer to have a good relationship with the United States, he said, folding his hands in front of him. That is good for the world. But every action will have a reaction. And if an immature leader throws the world into chaos, then the world will know whom to blame.

But the ethos of the Obama campaign was to do more than simply clear a bar, an ethos shaped by an African American candidate who lived the Jackie Robinson reality that black people had to do things better than white people to reach new heights.

Then Axe, who is Jewish, broke the silence. “Boy, the Germans are a lot nicer than my grandparents made them out to be.”

“Who are you?” she asked. “The speechwriter,” I said. She gave me a level stare and then complained that she wasn’t seated next to someone more important.

We had shown that Obama could fill the role of leader of the free world, and his success had only made a whole slice of the country that much angrier.

countries.” The references to America’s own historical sins—to people like Obama and me—reflected a positive, patriotic, and progressive view of American history; the capacity for self-correction is what makes us exceptional.

Yes, Obama believes in the liberation of peoples, but he is at his core an institutionalist, someone who believes progress is more sustainable if it is husbanded by laws, institutions, and—if need be—force.

He gave the speech on December 1 at West Point. I stood backstage with him as rows and rows of uniformed soldiers awaited his words. Some of them would end up dying as a result of the decision Obama was announcing. Before going out, Obama fidgeted a bit backstage, waiting as a large clock ticked down to the moment when he would stride out onto the stage to deliver the address. “They’re so young,” he said.

“As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of nonviolence. I know there’s nothing weak—nothing passive—nothing naïve—in the creed of the lives of Gandhi and King. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.”

“It is a truism to say that there is a far greater unity among the masses in Egypt on what and who they want to see gone than there is on what and who they want in its/their place.”

I came out of the Jewish community in Chicago,” he said. “I’m basically a liberal Jew.”

Gandhi quote: “In the end, tyrants fall. Think of it. Always.”

While the Middle East represented the past—its religious wars, American-backed autocrats, Iranian revolutionaries, terrorist threats—Asia seemed to represent the future.

Like us, Quincy was making his own pivot to Asia.

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

I was surprised to see pamphlets that translated the Cairo speech into Burmese. I asked why the speech was of interest to people here. “The people admire Obama,” one man said. “We use this speech to teach them how to be tolerant of people from different religions.”

reporters would tell you privately that they knew Benghazi was a bogus scandal, but they would still report on the allegations against her in print and on TV. The Republicans were talking about it incessantly, so it was news.

We had a chance to avoid a war and a nuclear-armed Iran, but diplomacy wouldn’t succeed if we couldn’t keep Congress from killing it with new sanctions legislation.

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

“We know that, like South Africa, the United States had to overcome centuries of racial subjugation. As was true here, it took sacrifice—the sacrifice of countless people, known and unknown, to see the dawn of a new day. Michelle and I are beneficiaries of that struggle….Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba’s example, he makes me want to be a better man.”

There was almost no coverage of the first African American president eulogizing the most iconic African of the last century. Instead, the lead story back home was a selfie that the Danish prime minister had taken with Obama. Everywhere, the picture was splashed across websites, on social media, on cable news: Obama grinning next to an attractive blond woman. The thought and care Obama had put into honoring Mandela, and his efforts to reveal himself in doing so, were subsumed by the opportunity to talk about this photograph. Before we landed, Obama told me he’d never been so annoyed by the U.S. media. He didn’t have to explain why.

A Rubicon had been crossed—the Russians no longer stopped at hacking information; now, triggered by the threat of Ukraine sliding out of their sphere of influence, they were willing to hack information and put it into the public domain.

He neither liked nor loathed Putin, nor did he subscribe to the view that Putin was all that tough. “If he was that sure of himself,” Obama said, “he wouldn’t have his picture taken riding around with his shirt off.”

By his sixth year in office, he had used military force in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya while escalating our use of armed drones against al Qaeda.

This, I thought, is a guy who is out of fucks.

After bin Laden was killed, communications were found in his compound in which he lamented that the absence of a religious name for al Qaeda allowed the West to “claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam.”

An organ was playing, people were giving praise in the audience, and in that instant I was reminded that there were people, good people, kind people out there in the world who were more important than any of the petty controversies that enveloped us every day,

“ ‘Dear Mr. President,’ ” he began to read aloud. “ ‘I used to not like you because of the color of your skin. My whole life I have hated people because of the color of their skin. I have thought about things since those nine people were killed and I realize I was wrong. I want to thank you for everything you are trying to do to help people.’ ” He finished, and put the letter down. None of us knew what to say. It felt as if the whole presidency was for the purpose of receiving this single letter. He looked at the letter on his desk, as though it were another person in the room. “Grace,” he said. Then he got up and walked over to his chair. “It’s a shame,” he said, sitting down, “that those nine people had to die for that to happen.”

“Look,” Obama finally said, “I get that it’s unfair. I’m African American.” Modi smiled knowingly and looked down at his hands. He looked genuinely pained. “I know what it’s like to be in a system that’s unfair,” he went on. “I know what it’s like to start behind and to be asked to do more, to act like the injustice didn’t happen. But I can’t let that shape my choices, and neither should you.” I’d never heard him talk to another leader in quite that way. Modi seemed to appreciate it. He looked up and nodded.

“In America, we have a clear monument to what the Cuban people can build. It’s called Miami.”

“We created an echo chamber,” he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.” It sounded diabolical, but all I was describing was the most routine aspect of communications work. Briefing people. Disseminating fact sheets. Hoping that others who share your view will make the same arguments as you in public. This was no different from what any White House communications official does to support the rollout of a new policy.

Artifacts tell us that violent conflict appeared with the very first man. Our early ancestors, having learned to make blades from flint and spears from wood, used these tools not just for hunting but against their own kind.

McConnell’s refusal was staggeringly partisan and unpatriotic in its disregard for a foreign adversary undermining our democracy. But the sad truth is that it wasn’t surprising in the context of the Republican Party of 2016, which had spent eight years disbanding norms and had circled the wagons behind a demagogue.

In giving advice on how to deal with Trump, he offered a simple maxim: “Find some high ground, and hunker down.”