Entering the West Wing, I’d grab a coffee from the White House Mess carryout window and be trailed back to my office by a “briefer,” someone from the intelligence community who would sit across my desk and walk me through the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB). In those days before we switched to iPads, the PDB was a mahogany leather binder with the seal of the president on it. The first few items—referred to as “articles”—were one- or two-page summaries of key topics or developments that would also go to Obama. Usually, they dealt with whatever bad thing around the world merited his attention:
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