by Pat Cunnane
The president would be asked to address the nation in the wake of many more mass shootings. He would respond to nearly twenty before he left office, including the most deadly mass shooting in United States history in Orlando, Florida,V a bigoted terrorist attack on the LGBTQ community, and the particularly appalling racist attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015. “I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts,” Obama told those assembled, heartbroken in Newtown.
But the president’s words—any president’s words—are crucial and can begin the healing. Obama’s light-in-dark moments came from reacting not just as a president, but as a person and a parent. He knew that Americans’ eyes are often opened only in the wake of these horrible events, and the window to keep them opened is short. In Charleston, he asked that we not allow “ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again.”
He was more than our consoler in chief. Obama pushed the conversation forward. He reminded us that though our politics are often small, these moments can lay bare the best in us, displaying our better angels and our big hearts. But his speeches weren’t fairy tales, either. He forced us to remember, his words were haunting, and he did his best to stir us to action—so that these speeches might become less common.
President Obama often turned to Scripture to begin and end these kinds of remarks, most notably in Charleston, when he discussed the idea of unearned grace. Ephesians 2:8–9 tells us “Grace is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Sure, Obama is an elegant, graceful man, a man of warmth and charisma. The final, essential ingredient, though, is a humility that leads to an open heart. Obama’s humility is real—not put on like a false cloak—and that left the door open for grace to slip in. Grace, not earned, as he said that day, but grace as a free and benevolent gift of God. And grace for the benefit of those around him. To console. To inspire.
He famously finished his eulogy to Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the senior pastor at A.M.E. church and a South Carolina state senator, that June day, singing:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found
T’was blind, but now I see.
Going in, Obama had thought about singing but wasn’t certain. The moment needed to be right. He was humble enough to leave his heart open, to see if that bit of grace might slip in. Sure enough, it did. To good effect. The crowd came quickly to its feet and embraced him in song.
• • •
It was Obama’s confidence wedded to his genuine humility that I witnessed connect in place after place, person after person, of every geography and station in life. Nowhere was that more evident than when we flew back, last minute, to South Africa for the funeral of Nelson Mandela.
We had only a few days to plan. Typically, we’d hold a series of meetings, a week or more, in the Situation Room. There we would take part in a SVTC (secure video teleconference), pronounced “civ-vitz,” with the advance staff who were already on the ground. They’d do much of the heavy lifting; the face-to-face meetings needed to pull off a presidential visit. Many countries provided little resistance to the way we needed to do things to move the president across a foreign country. Sending helicopters, the Beast (the president’s heavily-armored limousine), even weapons ahead of time on cargo planes. Allowing our press into events. Gift-exchange protocol. But other countries were more set in their ways. “You’re in South Africa now,” our staffers heard over and over from their counterparts in the lead-up to Mandela’s funeral. Still, nothing compared with China or Russia, both of which showed little to no desire to work with us on anything. Flexibility, not their forte.
While we sat around the mahogany tables of the Situation Room, the advance staffers halfway around the world crammed into a tent in a hotel room.
The president’s advance team was made up of men and women from across the country, many of them just out of college, who were ready to jump into action on a moment’s notice. Often, they were away from home for weeks or months at a time. Truth is, they laid the groundwork, did the grunt work—the hardest work—so that when we touched down on Air Force One, there wasn’t much to worry about. Their dedication to the job—and their importance to the White House—can’t be overstated. Neither can the logistical complexity of a foreign trip, right down to the tented hotel rooms.
The tents were in response to security and eavesdropping concerns. And to further obscure conversations, they blared pop music, sometimes Britney Spears hits, outside the tent to deter anybody who might try to listen in. Occasionally, I’d catch a “Hit me, baby, one more time” and suppress a laugh.
“It’s gonna be a shit-show,” somebody said of the world’s leaders coming together for the Mandela affair, flying in last minute, jamming the streets with motorcades and crowding the hotels. (Our delegation alone often took up three or more floors of rooms.) I continued to stifle my laughter at the absurdity of it all; the idea that we were the ones in the room—or, more precisely, that I was somehow allowed in this room as those more important than I pulled together a global event in short order.
The United States government did save a bit on air fare, as President and Mrs. Obama offered to plane-pool with George W. and Laura Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. We all flew down together. A few hours into the flight, President and Mrs. Bush popped back into the press cabin. He brushed by me when he recognized a sleeping reporter. Bush tried to jolt him awake and scare him a bit, which prompted that famous Bush laughter: “he-he-he,” with the signature shoulder shake. The former president and his wife chatted with us for nearly two hours, yukking it up with the reporters he knew during his administration—talking mostly about mountain biking and painting. He seemed to cherish being back on the plane, and it was infectious. This was a leader I had felt such animosity toward, and yet here in the back of his old plane, it was impossible not to like him. He had charisma, and, more than that, he seemed like a good guy.
We landed in Johannesburg and rolled immediately to a Radisson Blu Hotel on the outskirts of the city. It was the same hotel we had stayed in six months prior, just after our trip to Senegal and the Door of No Return. Only this time, we didn’t have hotel rooms—just a conference center and access to the gym and showers to refresh before the funeral. One unfortunate younger reporter was doing just that when the president walked in on him, nearly nude, in the locker room.
I couldn’t stop laughing at the thought as I waited in the motorcade. This was such a different trip than my first time to South Africa on Semester at Sea, when Stephanie and I traveled by ferry to Robben Island to view Mandela’s cell where he had spent the majority of his twenty-seven unjust years in prison. It was distinct, too, from my second trip just a few months before, when I watched the president view Mandela’s cell. This third trip would be a somber occasion. Or so I thought.
Then, we were off. Winding our way among a sea of never-ending motorcades to the ninety-five-thousand-seat FNB Stadium on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Turns out, it wasn’t so somber. It was a four-hour celebration. We waited on a mezzanine level as the crowd danced, cheered, and sang. The weather didn’t look like it was going to hold out in this open-air stadium. The president took a selfie with the British and Danish prime ministers. I remember spotting NBC journalist and anchorman Lester Holt and walking over to him, but then stopping as I neared him, turning away. I’m not going to be the guy that tells Lester Holt I love what he’s doing on Dateline at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, I thought.
Speaking of focusing on the wrong things, Google “Nelson Mandela Funeral Obama,” and you need to scroll through a page and a half of snarky “selfie-scandal” stories regarding the picture taken of Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark—before you can find the text of the president’s speech. Now, getting
in trouble for taking a selfie at a funeral is just the kind of nonsense that might make for a solid spec script of a modern-day Seinfeld, but the amount of time and energy spent on this pseudoscandal was astounding. And the reflections on what it meant for our society—that we were a boorish, impolite bunch; that civility was on the decline—were overwrought. Those who were in the building knew that it wasn’t an altogether out-of-place action at what was really a joyous occasion. And those of us who’ve lived through the past few years recognize that this wouldn’t even register on today’s skewed scale of civility among public officials.
Even so, it’s all the press wanted to focus on in the wake of the service, along with speculation about Obama’s handshake with Cuban president Raul Castro, as well as the bogus sign language interpreter who stood a few feet from Obama during his speech colorfully inventing signs from whole cloth. It’s not entirely surprising that such distractions would occur. Those international events were a little like Thanksgiving dinner: getting family, often from far-flung corners, under one roof. Things will go awry; stuff will be blown out of proportion. Still, Josh put it correctly when asked yet again about the nonsense: “It’s a shame that you had a service that was dedicated to honoring the life and celebrating the legacy of one of the great leaders of the twentieth century that has gotten distracted by this and a couple of other issues that are far less important than the legacy of Nelson Mandela.”
Josh was right. And what Obama said about Mandela mattered.
I waited with the pool at the edge of the tunnel to the field as it began to pour. A mounted police officer was nearly thrown off his horse as the huge animal reared onto its hind legs. Whether Sandy Hook, or Charleston, or the Mandela funeral, I used to worry how any man’s words could meet the gravity of these moments. Surely, he worried too, I thought, looking at the packed FNB Stadium, a stage so grand and imposing. A moment later, President Obama and a sea of Secret Service rolled by. We trailed him to the stage, where the sign language interpreter was waiting.
President Obama began, “It is hard to eulogize any man—to capture in words not just the facts and the dates that make a life, but the essential truth of a person . . . How much harder to do so for a giant of history . . .”
And after comparing Mandela to Gandhi, and King, and Lincoln, Obama said: “Given the sweep of his life, it’s tempting, I think, to remember Nelson Mandela as an icon, smiling and serene, detached from the tawdry affairs of lesser men. But Madiba himself strongly resisted such a lifeless portrait. Instead, Madiba insisted on sharing with us his doubts and his fears; his miscalculations along with his victories. ‘I am not a saint,’ he said, ‘unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.’ ”
Continuing, Obama argued, “It was precisely because he could admit to imperfection . . . that we loved him so. He was not a bust made of marble; he was a man of flesh and blood—a son and a husband, a father and a friend . . .”
There, in the pouring rain, surrounded by thousands of people whose journeys I did not know, I was struck that in the language Obama used to describe Mandela, he could have been describing himself. And that the arc of history ties together men and women, whether giants like Obama and Mandela or ordinary people like me and the stranger huddled next to me by the stage.
“And finally, Mandela understood the ties that bind the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa—ubuntu—a word that captures Mandela’s greatest gift: his recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us.”
Where had I heard that word before? On a boat floating in the middle of the Atlantic in January 2009, the dawn of the Obama presidency.
“He not only embodied ubuntu, he taught millions to find that truth within themselves . . . 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.”
It was dawning on me, against my will: ubuntu. And in the pouring rain, Obama’s confidence, ability, and openhearted humility met the moment, and in rained grace.
* * *
I. Marie’s was one of the earlier moves in what would become a major migration of Obama people from DC to San Francisco.
II. A particularly slow excuse for Wi-Fi was added late in Obama’s second term.
III. Marv took over after Reggie Love left.
IV. Desiree continues to assert that it was more like “one day on, two days off” for me.
V. As of this writing, the 2017 attack on Las Vegas has eclipsed Orlando in terms of carnage. And, if this book lasts in print very long at all, Vegas too will surely and sadly be surpassed.
7
* * *
The Normals
The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.
—ALFRED ADLER
My first dream job was trashman. I’d hang off the banister of my nana’s bottom staircase like I was clutching the back of a hulking garbage truck rolling down Roberts Avenue, vaulting quickly on and off, grabbing neighbors’ cans. Next, I did a stint as a professional baseball player, before landing on something that stuck. Writing. Screenplays, specifically, which to my eight-year-old mind were two or three pages scribbled on one of my mom’s yellow legal pads. Yet as school kicked into high gear, I never gave my future career—writing, baseball, or trashman—much thought. I just sort of assumed it would work out. From the warehouse to the White House, I was very lucky.
But even after a few years in the West Wing, in my mind lingered that yellow legal pad.
Following the 2012 campaign and a few final foreign trips, I remember sitting back at my desk in Upper Press, having largely been on the road for a year, wondering, What now? There were to be a number of staff changes, and I didn’t know where I would land.
I thought maybe it was time to go. After the excitement of the campaign, how could a desk job possibly compare? My parents knocked some sense into me. “Stay and turn out the lights,” they insisted. They didn’t have to say it more than once.
Dan Pfeiffer was promoted to senior advisor, moving down the hall, across from the Roosevelt Room; Jen Palmieri, onetime Clinton White House staffer (and future Hillary Clinton campaign communications director), was bumped up from deputy to take over Dan’s position; Katie Beirne Fallon, who would soon go on to lead Legislative Affairs, came in as deputy comms director, followed by Amy Brundage, previously a deputy press secretary. Eventually, Jen Psaki would come on as comms director, and Liz Allen would take over as deputy. That’s not to say there was an unusual staff churn in the second term. It’s just the way it worked in many of those high-level jobs: do a couple years and then move on to the next challenge.
I had nine direct bosses during the second term, seven of them women. All of them wonderful. All mocked me mercilessly, but I owe each of them a great deal of thanks. They helped me grow from wrangling to writing and expand to message planning and development.
Now, in the second term, I fell into my dream job. Even more remarkable to me than tagging along on Air Force One. I was one of the White House staffers tasked with telling the president’s story.
There are many ways to narrate, to message: speeches, interviews, trips. But the goal is always the same: to take what the president’s been working on behind the bulletproof glass of the Oval Office to the people. Distill it. Explain it. Promote it. Connect with Americans. And the best way to do that was to talk directly with them. That’s what I got to do.
• • •
In Veep, characters sometimes refer to them as “normals,” but in the real West Wing—often dozens of times each day—we referred to them as “real people” or “RPs.” They are the elusive living, breathing Americans we depend upon to make a point—tell a story—or push a message. Whether it’s a cute kid, an adult who overcame
the odds, or, best of all, a Republican who has had a change of heart, the right real person is worth his or her weight in gold. To find them, we often turned to OPC: the Office of Presidential Correspondence.
“It’s one of the most optimistic things you can do.”
That’s how Cody Keenan, the president’s chief speechwriter for the second term, would describe the act of writing a letter to the president. To sit down, often alone at the end of a long day, the weight of your world—kids, mortgages, illnesses, heartbreaks—on your mind, and start writing “Dear Mr. President . . .” With the hope that maybe, just maybe, somehow, your note will find its way to the most powerful man on Earth. More often than you’d think, it did.
I’ve written a lot about what it is to be inside the presidential bubble. It’s a remarkable experience, but it is disconnecting, and it’s important to guard against that detachment—to resist a clouding of perspective on the country you’re working to serve.
So it was even more important for Obama to understand the mood of America, the struggles of everyday people. He needed a lens beyond the bubble. He wisely decided early on that letters would be that lens: ten letters from across the country every night, selected from among thousands that poured in every day, for him to read late into the evening in the Treaty Room, his personal office in the residence.
Put on like a pair of reading glasses every night to help him focus, the letters were called the 10LADs, for ten letters a day.
The Office of Presidential Correspondence was composed of fifty staffers, dozens of interns, and hundreds of volunteers—sorting through letters and emails. When my Uncle Bob read mail as a volunteer almost twenty years earlier, there wasn’t much in the way of email or texts. It was all hard mail. All letters get read, coded, and initialed. In Uncle Bob’s day, P-150 was the code for a letter that required a generic “Thanks for your note” reply. There were hundreds of codes back then, from abortion to Middle East peace—everything had a category. Skills from his days as a US Navy radioman likely served him as he coded. Well, maybe. Turns out, women would often send their panties. “We’ve got another pair!” somebody would call out. “The amount of sexual stuff that came in for Bill Clinton cannot be overstated,” Uncle Bob told me.