{"id":9281,"date":"2020-12-23T23:59:33","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/?p=9281"},"modified":"2026-08-27T04:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T04:18:20","slug":"the-great-communicator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2020\/12\/23\/the-great-communicator\/","title":{"rendered":"The great communicator"},"content":{"rendered":"

I <\/span>have few souvenirs from my time in Number 10 but one that\u2019s treasured is a box of M&Ms complete with presidential seal and Barack Obama\u2019s signature. They were supposed to be a snack on Air Force One, but I keep them next to a photograph of me looking starstruck shaking his hand at a White House dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n

They remind me of watching Obama up close over the course of several transatlantic visits. He was clearly a political superstar who had overcome astronomical odds to become not only the most powerful person on the planet but the first black President. He married an A-list star\u2019s charisma with an unfazed dignity and\u2014crucially\u2014a willingness to delve deep on policy. <\/span><\/p>\n

I also learned that the fairytale of his rise missed out the reality that he was also the product of a ruthlessly professional operation that knew how to manipulate things.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I exchanged notes with his team about potential photo opportunities with David Cameron, questions like, \u201cWhere are the RPs?\u201d came back. When I asked what that meant, I was told \u201cReal People\u201d. It made them sound like props. <\/span><\/p>\n

I also saw that he wasn\u2019t without flaws. There was a tendency to lean on soaring rhetoric, wearing out its power describing the day-to-day, or, worse, glossing over inconvenient truths. <\/span><\/p>\n

He could also be alarmingly long-winded. I sat in several press conferences watching my boss shift from foot to foot as Obama eased into the tenth minute of an answer to a question, providing an exhaustive tour of the horizon with no sign of stopping\u2014more professor than President.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I wondered which Obama would turn up in his memoir. The early impressions weren\u2019t great. First there\u2019s that title, A Promised Land<\/i>, which may be intended as ambiguous but in reality, feels hubristic. That view is compounded by the quote from Robert Frost\u2019s \u201cKitty Hawk\u201d:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t discount our powers;
\n<\/span>We have made a pass
\n<\/span>At the infinite.
\n<\/span>Really? <\/span><\/p>\n

The accompanying publicity materials come with a playlist of songs that supposedly provided the soundtrack to his Presidency. Then there\u2019s the realisation that the 700 closely typed pages are merely the first half of his story, with another volume to come (this one takes us up to the killing of Osama bin Laden). <\/span><\/p>\n

My fears were soon allayed. Obama is a warm narrator, treating the reader like an old friend invited to a fireside chat. He\u2019s also a gifted writer, striking the perfect balance between colour, detail, self-deprecation and the self-justification which is the necessary evil of most political memoirs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The preface acknowledges the fear and loathing that characterises so much of current US politics, a mile away from Obama\u2019s hope and change, making clear the promised land may be a pipe dream, asking key questions about America: \u201cDo we care to match the reality to its ideals? If so, do we really believe that our notions of . . . equality of opportunity . . . apply to everybody? Or are we instead committed to reserving those things for a privileged few?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He admits that at times he sees merit in the argument of sceptics who believe America has never been about equality and the real story has too often been \u201cconquest and subjugation, a racial caste system and rapacious capitalism\u201d. Despite that, he asserts he isn\u2019t ready to abandon \u201cthe possibility of America\u201d. The book isn\u2019t always convincing in explaining why. It\u2019s far better capturing the hoopla surrounding a candidate and President and also when at its most personal.<\/p>\n

Obama never misses an opportunity to praise his wife\u2019s beauty, parenting skills and wisdom but he also reveals a brutal critic. When he tells Michelle he is running for office again, she angrily accuses him of basing his plan on having \u201cmagic beans in his pocket\u201d, before telling him he can\u2019t count on her, in fact, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t even count on my vote\u201d. Ouch. Politics can chew up and spit out those who make it their lives but there can be a heavier price for those who love them. It\u2019s hard not to feel deep sympathy for Michelle during the late-night rows in the early years of their marriage as she sacrificed her dreams in pursuit of his. Later, Obama acknowledges the loneliness she felt, isolated in the White House, while the world fawned over him.<\/span><\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t always so self-aware. More than once he writes of Ted Kennedy as a giant among men, apparently not seeing that this grates with his lectures about how the rich and powerful can abuse their positions and escape justice. But I was struck more often than not by his thoughtfulness and empathy. His stories of going to visit soldiers who have been wounded horrifically in Afghanistan show he understands how an individual\u2019s life can be upended or destroyed by a President\u2019s whim. His anger at bankers who refused to take responsibility for the 2008 financial crisis and continued to justify spectacular bonuses is real. Each night he insisted on having ten letters placed in his papers\u2014a cross-section of the mountain of post received daily at the White House. That helped keep him in touch and it\u2019s to his credit that he spent time penning hand-written replies.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had the privilege of sitting in on an intimate dinner at the White House with Obama. The staff were all black or Hispanic and it was clear, as he mentions in the book, until his presidency this had been yet another signal of the racial divide in America. As the evening wore on and he relaxed he spoke of images on the news that had angered him. In a case that foreshadowed the killing of George Floyd earlier this year, a man was shown being held in a chokehold by police after being caught selling cigarettes second hand. Obama rightly saw this as a disgusting over-reaction, and yet it also later became clear that he felt he had to contain this anger when talking to the American people about the case. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are frequent mentions of how his campaign team constantly urged him to avoid the issue of race because it would play badly with the coalition of voters he needed to deliver and maintain power. Part of him understands, that\u2019s politics\u2014and the first rule is you can\u2019t do anything unless you win; the second is you will probably lose part of your soul in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the most part, the tone is optimistic, so it\u2019s a shock when Obama reveals a deeper, darker side. Michelle asks him at one stage, \u201cGod, Barack . . . When is it ever going to be enough?\u201d It seems the answer is, never, even for a man who came so far, so fast. On a visit to Egypt when he spies an ancient portrait daubed on a wall he writes: <\/span><\/p>\n

The Pharoah, the slave and the vandal, long turned to dust, just as every speech I delivered, every law I passed and decision I made would soon be forgotten. Just as I and all those I loved would someday turn to dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, he will be long remembered. <\/span><\/p>\n

A Promised Land<\/i> makes a more than decent fist of showing Barack Hussein Obama was a good President, but more than that, it reveals repeatedly he was an exceptional human being and the greatest communicator of his time, fully deserving of his special place in history.<\/span><\/p>\n

George W. Bush told David Cameron not to struggle too hard to burnish his legacy, because he\u2019d either succeed or fail in comparison to whoever came after. By that mark, Obama excelled. In often sparkling prose describing everything from the killing of bin Laden to the \u201creal gangster shit\u201d, as his aide puts it, required to deliver a deal on climate change, he helps us see a moderate yet driven man who we could do with now more than ever. Closing the book and comparing him to today\u2019s batch of politicians, I was left with one question: will we ever see his like again?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Promised Land
\n<\/b><\/span>By Barack Obama
\n<\/i><\/span>Viking, 768pp, \u00a335<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

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