I was told my application had been prioritized, but even so it took forever. One week I was asked to confirm some personal information. The next week I was invited to the Interior Department to pee in a cup. Throughout March I was a contestant on a federally run reality show, bouncing between challenges, unsure whether I’d be eliminated or handed the final rose. Each day my heart pounded as I scanned my inbox. Had something gone wrong with my urine sample? Had the vetters learned about the month in college when I paired thrift-store blazers with Looney Tunes pajamas and was certain I had started a trend?
Finally, on March 30, 2011, I got an e-mail from Alex, Straut’s assistant. I was twenty-four years old. Most of my proudest achievements in life still fell under the category of “overcomplicated pranks.” But starting April 1, I was cleared to work in the White House.
MY FIRST WEEK AT WORK, I PUT A FULL CUP OF COFFEE THROUGH THE X-ray machine by the security scanner. It emerged a few seconds later, empty and on its side. “Not a lot of metal in that,” sighed the Secret Service agent on duty, looking for a towel. “Just a thought, for next time.” I could practically see him add me to his Do Not Save list.
I had not expected this sort of thing to happen. I guess I thought walking through the White House gates instantly makes you better, stronger, and more capable than before. It doesn’t. While my job was more exciting, the rest of me remained fundamentally unimproved.
This was grossly unfair. Every day, my unchanged abilities were pitted against drastically heightened expectations. Just a few months earlier, for example, I had panicked at the idea of a weekly roommate check-in meeting to discuss the chore chart. Now, with Valerie set to speak on international women’s issues, I was supposed to bring together a half dozen experts from the National Security Council staff.
What made this meeting particularly frightening was that it included Samantha Power, the president’s top advisor on human rights. At forty-one years old, she already had a degree from Harvard Law, a Pulitzer Prize, and years of experience on the White House senior staff. Far smarter people than I had been exposed as morons merely by her presence. When the big moment arrived, I nervously made my way to a spacious NSC office suite. Then I opened the door, certain one of the greatest foreign-policy minds of her generation was about to reduce me to intellectual rubble.
But Samantha Power was running behind schedule. This was a golden opportunity. If I could win over lower-ranking staffers, I’d have allies in the room when the president’s advisor arrived. A half dozen of us pulled chairs into a circle. I did my best to turn on the charm. With a shock of satisfaction, I realized it was working. I was making small talk! I was fitting in! Everyone was smiling broadly when, too late, I realized I already knew the stony-faced policy savant sitting directly to my right.
“Funny story,” said Richard, when his turn came to introduce himself. “David and I met years ago. I was actually his teaching assistant in college.” At this, another staffer, one about twice my age, saw a chance for some lighthearted fun.
“So, was he a good student?”
I will never forgive Richard for answering honestly. “You know,” he said, eyebrows arching like an Us Weekly photographer seated next to Lindsay Lohan on a flight, “he seemed kind of bright. But I always got the feeling he didn’t want to be there. He never really applied himself.”
At that exact moment, as six get-to-know-you smiles turned to frowns, Samantha Power walked in. I tried to apply myself. I really did. But it was hopeless. Each time I asked for details, or failed to grasp a point, I was met with a half dozen disappointed stares.
The disapproval of my former teaching assistant I could live with. The disapproval of my new boss was something I hoped to avoid. This was easier said than done, as Valerie Jarrett’s superpower was the ability to ask the one question for which I had forgotten to prepare. Before taking my seat at the burnished wood conference table in her West Wing office, I’d research everything: the size of the crowd, the name of the introducer, the exact length of the remarks.
“So,” she’d begin, “who’s speaking after me?” I don’t know how she did it. This happened every time.
It was moments like these—plus her habit of looking at you like a goldfish she appreciated but wouldn’t be heartbroken to flush—that accounted for Valerie’s fearsome reputation. “She expects her staff to work as hard as she does” was the line staffers often used. In Washington, this is typically a euphemism for “harasses interns” or “once threw a stapler at the scheduler’s head,” but in Valerie’s case it was true. In 1991, she had interviewed a young woman named Michelle Robinson for a job in Chicago’s city hall. Not long after, she was introduced to Michelle’s fiancé, a young lawyer named Barack.
The Obamas had been family ever since. More than nearly anyone, Valerie knew how improbable their journey had been. She was determined not to squander a single moment. She demanded the same determination from everyone she employed.
Valerie never told me this directly, but I also came to believe she saw herself as a custodian of the president’s conscience. As senior advisor, she served not just the middle-aged politician in the Oval Office, but the young idealist she had met two decades before. Ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Fighting inner-city poverty. Opening a gender-neutral White House bathroom. When something fell under the category of “not necessarily great politics, but the right thing to do,” it was often Valerie leading the charge.
This combination of intense loyalty and unabashed progressivism made my new boss a favorite target. The mouthpiece of the real POTUS, Comrade Valerie Jarrettikov! It wasn’t just Internet trolls who despised her. The mere mention of her name could derange even the most polished member of the GOP elite. “She seems to have her tentacles into every issue and every topic,” declared Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, as though Ursula from The Little Mermaid had taken up residence in the West Wing.
But if there was any theft of voices, or abuse of poor unfortunate souls, I never saw it. Valerie’s portfolio was broad because all senior advisors’ portfolios are broad. Involving herself in a wide variety of issues—as both advocate and enforcer—was the essence of her job. And in April 2011, my first month at the White House, those roles had never been more critical. The unemployment rate was nearly 9 percent. Household incomes were going down instead of up. With Election Day less than two years away, there was zero margin for error, and no room for careless mistakes.
This was especially true for the youngest members of the staff. The small inner circle responsible for President Obama’s rise was not about to let someone born after the first Ghostbusters be responsible for his fall. At each semester’s orientation, Straut lulled new interns into a false sense of security with talk of friendships and personal growth. Then, without warning, he lowered his voice.
“Let me be absolutely clear,” he said. Too late, the interns realized their teddy bear had become a grizzly. “If you do something stupid and end up on the front page of the Post, you will be out of here immediately. I will not ask for your side of the story. I will not give you a second chance. I will not feel sorry for you. In fact, I will never think about you ever again.”