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

by Ben Rhodes

She was his closest partner in a world that offered few friends, and she had risked her political future by welcoming a million Syrian refugees to Germany. Obama admired her pragmatism, her unflappability, and her stubborn streak.

“Progress doesn’t move in a straight line.”

a reminder that we are all temporary employees and have to respond to whatever cards the world deals us.

All people, he said, want to maintain their identity in the modern world. “We should acknowledge that not everything we see is positive—there’s a mindless violence, a crude sexuality, a lack of reverence for life, a glorification of materialism.” That said, he wanted to make several statements of belief in human progress—that countries succeed when they are tolerant of different religious beliefs; that governments that give voice to their people and respect the rule of law are more stable and satisfying; and that countries where women are empowered are more successful.

There are moments in history—just because things have been the same way in the past doesn’t mean they will be the same way in the future.”

“Pull yourself together,” he said. “We have to be professional here.” There was an edge to his voice; he wasn’t joking.

Every presidency is a story with one person at the center of it. This is how America organizes its political life and history books. This is how the world consumes the disparate elements of American democracy in an age of American dominance. The president as hero or villain; the president as the person who decides, consoles, commemorates, and reacts; the president as temporary royalty, in command and at the mercy of events that share this time with him.

The days are long, the weeks are long, the months are long, but the years are short—one

He was the type of person who had quietly made a larger impact on people’s lives than anyone knew.

You need to listen to everyone, and your cabinet needs to be reflective of everyone, and the rules and the constitution include everyone.”

All men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Realizing that ideal has never been easy, even within our own borders, even among our own citizens. But staying true to that story is worth the effort. It is an ideal to be strived for, an ideal that extends across continents and across oceans. The irreducible worth of every person, the insistence that every life is precious, the radical and necessary notion that we are part of a single human family—that is the story that we all must tell.

THE ARC OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE IS LONG, BUT IT BENDS TOWARD JUSTICE.