Thanks, Obama Read online

  Silence. That disappointed look.

  I understood their disappointment. If I was going to make the president better at his job just by being in the room, I would have to answer far more difficult questions than “How’s it going?” There was no indication I could do it.

  At least my family could take pride in the video I had written. My grandmother on my mom’s side was particularly thrilled. She was with her boyfriend, Bill, ten years her senior, and together they made an excellent team. Thanks to the accumulated effects of time and Chivas Regal, Grandma would forget she was repeating herself. This was fine with Bill, who hadn’t heard her the first time. Their shared love of shouting, combined with short-term memory loss, made them a kind of two-person hype squad.

  “Can you believe it? David wrote something for the president.”

  “What?!”

  “DAVID wrote a VIDEO! For the PRESIDENT!”

  Even this accomplishment was short-lived, however. For all the effort I put into my script, something had been missing, and Fox News found it. It was remarkable how quickly they worked. The first headline was up before the turkey was even carved: OBAMA LEAVES GOD OUT OF THANKSGIVING ADDRESS. “Nowhere in the 11-paragraph address does he mention the Almighty,” the article said.

  By any fair measure, this was nonsense. The president had used the word “blessing” in his video. Who did Fox News think was handing out those blessings? Oprah? But the damage had been done. Right-wing media had ginned up a controversy, and respectable news outlets now felt free to cover it. OBAMA LEAVES GOD OUT OF THANKSGIVING SPEECH, RILES CRITICS, read the headline on ABC News.

  I returned to work Monday expecting to be widely shunned. To my surprise, nearly all of my speechwriting colleagues had a Fox News story of their own. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” they said. But my coworkers’ graciousness couldn’t mask the fact that I had failed. I wanted to do something for my country. I wanted to be friends with Obama. I was no closer to either goal.

  If I ever got a second chance, I promised myself, I wasn’t going to squander it.

  To my surprise, the opportunity came just a few weeks later. I was sitting in my office when Favs called. “Betty White is turning ninety years old,” he explained. “NBC is doing this special where famous people wish her a happy birthday, and you’re pretty funny, and no one else wants to do it. Want to give it a shot?”

  Of course I did. This was my Gettysburg Address.

  The taping was on Friday, and we had a week to make things perfect. Jon and I started by coming up with a joke. As the president signed a birthday card, the audience would hear his message as a voice-over:

  Dear Betty, you’re so young and full of life, I can’t believe you’re turning ninety. In fact, I don’t believe it. Please send a copy of your long-form birth certificate to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  Step two was to purchase the card itself. There was a CVS a half block from the White House. I studied their Hallmark display as carefully as a homicide detective at a crime scene. Then, just when I was about to make my purchase, I had a stroke of genius. We were going to film the president twice, from two different camera angles. But during the second shot, we couldn’t let anyone see that he had already written his birthday note. In other words, we didn’t need just one card. We needed two!

  Yes! I thought. This is how White House staffers are supposed to feel.

  I proudly returned to my office, certain I had saved the day, and began working on the final joke for the skit. Finally, I came up with something. As the video ended, President Obama would put in headphones. Then he’d pretend to listen to the theme song from The Golden Girls, Betty White’s most popular show.

  As the week drew on, I practiced explaining the joke to the president. I found the perfect headphones, a pair of white earbuds that would look great on camera. I listened to the Golden Girls theme song on repeat, just to get in the mood. By the time Friday dawned, I was brimming with confidence.

  Then came the phone call. “All right, head on over to the West Wing.”

  Perhaps there are some people who, summoned to the Oval Office for the very first time, walk in there like it’s no big deal. Those people are sociopaths. For the rest of us, attending your first Oval Office meeting is like performing your own bris.

  To make matters worse, when you have a meeting in the Oval Office, you don’t just go into the Oval Office. First you wait in a tiny, windowless chamber. It’s kind of like the waiting room in a doctor’s office, but instead of last year’s Marie Claire magazines they have priceless pieces of American art. And instead of a receptionist, there’s a man with a gun. And in a worst-case scenario, the man with a gun is legally required to kill you.

  It turns out this little room is the perfect place to second-guess every life choice you have ever made. As Hope Hall, the videographer, joined me on the small couch, I silently approached a nervous breakdown. Did I remember how to explain the concept? Did I have both cards? Were the headphones still in my pocket? How about now? How about now? I was on the verge of losing it completely when one of the president’s personal aides emerged.

  “Okay. He’s ready for you.”

  To my credit, the first time I walked into the Oval Office, I did not black out. In front of me I could see a painting of the Statue of Liberty by Norman Rockwell. Behind me, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the Emancipation Proclamation. Not a photocopy or poster. The. Emancipation. Proclamation. I didn’t turn to look at the document, but I could feel the message it was sending through the room.

  “I’m here because I freed the slaves,” it seemed to say. “What are you doing here?”

  Behind the giant, wooden Resolute desk sat President Obama. Judging from his expression, he, too, might be wondering what I was doing here. But I wasn’t worried. I had spent an entire week practicing how to explain this video. I stepped forward. I opened my mouth to speak. And face-to-face with the leader of the free world, what came out sounded like an exchange student about to fail an exam.

  “Betty White?!” I heard myself say. “Card and . . . birthday? Sing song theme Golden Girls headphones video, yes please?”

  President Obama looked confused. Hope jumped in, rescued me, and began filming, but I nonetheless felt concerned. This was my chance to show the president that I was a consummate professional. In my professional opinion, we weren’t off to a great start.

  Still, I knew I had another opportunity: my second birthday card. I was about to show the leader of the free world that I had saved the day. As soon as Hope captured her first shot, I strode to the desk, surprising even myself with my confidence.

  “Mr. President, we’re about to film a second shot from a different angle, but we want it to look like you’re writing your birthday greeting for the first time,” I explained, reaching into my jacket. “I’ll need to take that birthday card and replace it with this identical one.”

  President Obama cocked his head. “We’re shooting from all the way on the other side of the room?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “So no one can actually see inside the card.”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “So, I can just pretend to write in the card I have now. I don’t need a second one at all?”

  “Yes . . . that’s right.”

  I returned the backup card to my pocket. Strike two.

  Still, I wasn’t giving up. I had one final shot, the joke with the earbuds, and I was determined to make it count. The moment Hope was done filming, I walked back up to the desk, reached into my pants pocket, and withdrew what looked like a hair ball made of wires.

  I still don’t know what happened. Somewhere, probably in that waiting room, I had worried this thing into a hopeless tangle. Now I had no idea what to do, and so I did the only thing I could think of: I handed the whole pile to the president of the United States.

  If you work in the White House, you will hear a saying: There is no more valuable commodity on earth
than a president’s time. I always thought it was a cliché. Then I watched Barack Obama untangle headphones for thirty seconds, while looking directly at me. He untangled and untangled. Finally, the president turned to Hope and sighed.

  “Shoddy advance work.”

  He said it in a way that let me know that (a) he was just joking, and (b) he was not even a tiny bit joking. And in that moment, my heart sank. This was my third chance to make a second first impression on the president. I had let myself down. President Obama asked a question, but I heard it only faintly, as though a layer of gauze had been placed between us.

  “I should probably bob my head back and forth as I’m listening. Wouldn’t that be funnier?”

  “Yeah, it would,” I replied. But there was no rescuing my life-changing moment. I was in the Oval Office with the president, and all I wanted was to slink away. I stood in silence while Hope readied the final scene, knowing I would never get another chance. President Obama looked toward the camera.

  And then, he paused.

  “Hang on,” he said. “If I’m going to bob my head in time to the music, I need to know how the music goes. Does anyone know the Golden Girls theme song?”

  There was silence. President Obama looked at Hope. Hope didn’t say anything. I looked at Hope. Hope didn’t say anything. So President Obama looked at me.

  And suddenly, I knew exactly what I could do for my country.

  I planted my feet on the Oval Office carpet. I cast a brief glance at the Emancipation Proclamation behind me. Then I looked the commander in chief straight in the eye, and I began to sing.

  Bah-bum-bum-bum, thank you for being a friend. Bah-bum-bum-bum, traveled down the road and back again. Something, something, you’re a pal and a confidant.

  Patriotically, enthusiastically, I continued.

  And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew-ooh-ooh . . .

  President Obama gave me a look that indicated, politely but firmly, that we were encroaching on the president’s time.

  But it worked! The president bobbed his head in time to the music. NBC got their video. Betty White got her card. I left the Oval Office that day with my head held high, knowing that the president was just a tiny bit better at his job because I was in the room.

  It’s not as if I shed all my doubts that afternoon. I still wondered if we were race penguins. I still worried our hard work might never pay off. But as 2011 drew to a close, I felt a renewed sense of confidence. Our approval ratings were heading in the right direction. Smokey was nowhere to be seen. And I finally had an answer to the question on everyone’s mind.

  “So, have you met Obama yet?”

  “Met him? Well, I don’t want to brag or anything. Let’s just say I’m thankful he’s a friend.”

  5

  THE SALMON IN THE TOILET

  I never set out to become a connoisseur of White House men’s rooms. It just kind of happened. You move into a new apartment, get to know the area, and one day, to your surprise, you have strong feelings about every pizza place in the neighborhood. That’s what I went through, only with porcelain and liquid soap.

  My favorite restroom was on the ground floor of the residence, next to the ceremonial library. The white marble floors and sinks radiated luxury, yet their muted, opaque quality kept them from showing off. “It’s honestly no big deal,” they seemed to say. “Some of us were just born pretty.” The overall effect was both stunningly impressive and refreshingly humble, the best of American democracy superimposed upon a WC.

  West Wing men’s rooms offered unique charms of their own. For proximity to power there was the stall tucked against the Roosevelt Room, just footsteps from the Oval. For retro quirkiness, there was the restroom across from Valerie’s office. Urinals there were large and basinlike, like bathtubs sawed in half. (Even stranger, they flushed via bulky foot pedals placed twelve inches from the floor.) At ground level, the bathroom near Favs’s office boasted the building’s only shoe-polishing machine, the kind that looks like two Muppet scalps attached to opposite ends of a stick.

  Not surprisingly, the facilities in the EEOB were less distinguished. If anything, their defining feature was a trigger-happy automatic flush. I won’t go into too much detail. All I’ll say is that I was the frequent victim of an impromptu bidet.

  Yet despite these shortcomings, when it came to personal significance, no restroom could match the one in the southwest corner of the EEOB’s ground floor. This was because of something unforgettable (in advance, don’t worry, not gross) that happened six months after I started my new job.

  It was a special time. I could finally navigate my surroundings, but the novelty of the building had yet to fade. Even the most routine pee break glowed with history. Descending a spiral staircase to the ground floor, I remembered that FDR had worked here during the 1910s. That was before polio claimed his mobility, and I imagined his shoes clicking and clacking on the steps. The EEOB was also home to the vice president’s ceremonial office. Tugging on the engraved metal knob of the men’s room door, I wondered if Nixon or Johnson had ever strained against its weight.

  Then I entered the bathroom, and found the sole urinal occupied by someone in a bulletproof vest. This too was a kind of wonder. For the vast majority of my twenty-four years, I would have been stunned to see a real-life Secret Service agent. Diving in front of bullets. Driving through red lights. Sniping bad guys from rooftops. They were as mythical as X-Men, and no less devoted to saving the day.

  Now, after a few months at the White House, I still thought of Secret Service agents as heroes. But they were also people I peed next to. Not wanting to wait for the agent at the urinal, I scooted past him and opened the door to the stall. Stepping inside, I closed the latch behind me and turned around.

  And that’s when I saw it: a fillet of grilled salmon, unblemished by a single bite mark, sitting in the toilet bowl.

  This was not the most historic thing I witnessed at the White House. It was not the most profound. But it was, without question, the most remarkable. Think about it. How many people have met Barack Obama? Tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. How many people have found a salmon in the toilet at work?

  I have. And because I have, I can assure you the experience raises more questions than it answers. For example, why aren’t there any side dishes? What would happen if I flush?

  But those questions would come up anywhere. As I began the next phase of my inquiry, the search for suspects, a simple piece of fish took on far greater meaning. I knew it was an inside job—Ike’s was serving salmon that day—but beyond that I was stumped. The National Security Council offices were only three floors above me. Was someone there really so woefully incompetent? Or maybe it was the econ team. Had a person responsible for billions in federal grant money simply snapped? And let’s not forget the man in the bulletproof vest I had spotted just feet from the crime scene. Could a Secret Service agent have gone rogue?

  This, I was learning, is the power of the White House: it sprinkles its significance onto anything nearby. A staircase becomes more than a staircase. A doorknob becomes more than a doorknob. A toilet-salmon becomes more than a toilet-salmon. It’s astonishing to behold.

  TO APPRECIATE THE FULL EFFECT OF THIS WHITE HOUSE FAIRY DUST, all I had to do was invite friends to bowl. The Truman Alley sounds historic, elegant, and fancy. In reality, it’s a dump. With its stain-resistant carpeting and oversize industrial sink, the cramped outer room appears designed for autopsies. The only decorative touches—framed photos of presidents bowling—are easily available on Google Images. Also, there are only two lanes. For the vast majority of my White House tenure, one of them didn’t work.

  Worst of all, the only way to reach Truman Alley is through the EEOB basement, a warren of exposed wires and flickering fluorescent lights I am fairly certain was the setting for a Saw movie. After every bowling excursion, I led visitors through the murdery labyrinth to the surface, then braced myself for their disappointment. My gue
sts struggled to voice their emotions. The only thing worse than their silence was the outrage I was certain would follow. Finally, after composing themselves, they would look me in the eye.

  “That was amazing! Thank you so, so much!”

  Where I saw the world’s shabbiest rec center, they saw an exclusive pleasure paradise. That’s what the White House can do.

  It was only a matter of time before a question, shameful but unavoidable, crossed my mind. How much of that fairy dust rubs off on me? And more specifically, what could it do for my dating life?

  For those who already had game, a White House job made seduction almost painfully easy. There was the winter, for example, when a blond local newscaster caught the eye of a coworker. (I’ll call him Chase, because that’s what he enjoyed.) Out of nowhere the anchor began receiving invitations: to a holiday reception in the residence; to a sports team’s visit in the East Room. Each time she arrived, who should be seated beside her but Chase? He’d charm her for a few minutes, drop a couple of names, and then apologize for being so busy he couldn’t stay.

  It was almost too easy. After sealing the deal, Chase bragged about his conquest, but anyone could tell he was just going through the motions. He sounded like a big-game hunter given permission to shoot elephants at the zoo.

  On exactly one occasion, at a summertime cookout in a friend’s backyard, the White House worked a similar magic on me. I was in line for a beer refill when I bumped into Rachel, an activist type I knew from school. As usual, she didn’t pay me much attention. Then I mentioned my new job. Suddenly, she was transfixed.

  “Do you have a business card? Can I see it?”

  I reached for my wallet. As she ran her finger over the presidential seal, I saw her eyes mist over. Then they suddenly narrowed, as the image in her field of vision made contact with a fantasy in her head.