People in Washington talk about disillusionment the way people in high school talk about virginity. Your most mature peers have already gone all the way, you’re told. If you haven’t done it yet, it’s only a matter of time. Maybe you’ll settle down as a career public servant, remaining as pure as possible. Maybe you’ll join a lobbying firm and sleep with anything that moves. It doesn’t matter. The point is that there will be a single, defining moment, and it will close the door on your childhood forever.
Except that’s not how disillusionment works. In the wake of a lopsided debt deal, I didn’t suddenly decide President Obama was a fraud. I had no impulse to yell about betrayal while sweeping papers off my desk. Instead, I was struck by even more worrisome questions. What if we’re all just race penguins? What if the game is broken? What if we do everything right, and the polar bears still eat us in the end?
DURING THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED, AS NEWS REMAINED GRIM and our approval ratings struggled to recover, friends and family grew concerned.
“What’s the feeling like over there?” they wondered. They asked this as if there were some special emotion that exists nowhere but the White House, frustropefulness, maybe, or chaostalgia.
Other times they would frame the question more personally. “Is my buddy Joe okay? How’s Barack holding up?”
To my surprise, my friends and family were disappointed when I told them I had no idea. Now that they knew a White House staffer, they assumed they had direct access to the president of the United States. Sitting in my EEOB office one afternoon, I received a text from my little sister. How come the department of Homeland Security doesn’t have a mailing address? Even under the best of circumstances, this is a disconcerting question to receive from a family member. But if you work in the White House you want to have an answer. I didn’t.
It was like that with everything. Grandpa Irving e-mailed to ask if “my people” might take a look at his plan for a national network of water pipelines. Uncle Gabe warned me that Obamacare was causing black-market health care clinics to pop up left and right. Most of all, everyone had one question.
“So, have you met Obama yet?”
“No, not yet,” I would say, hoping to change the subject. Instead, I’d get a look, which I soon learned means, “You may be twenty-four years old and working at the White House, but you’re still a disappointment to your family and friends.”
I couldn’t blame them. They assumed, just as I had, that the White House is like The West Wing, where everyone hangs out with the president. Either that or it’s like Scandal, where everyone has sex with the president. But really, the White House is like the Death Star. There are thousands of busy people running around, each trying to make their own little piece of the ship function the way it’s supposed to.
“Just because Darth Vader is the public face of the organization doesn’t mean every stormtrooper gets one-on-one time,” I’d explain. This never worked.
Frankly, no one was more disappointed than I was. No one wanted me to meet Obama more than me. There were two reasons for this. The first was corny, but true: I believed there must be something I could do for my country, even if I didn’t yet know exactly what it was. I thought I could be the kind of person who makes the president a tiny bit better at his job, just by being in the room.
The second reason is that I wanted Barack Obama and me to become best friends. I’m not saying I assumed this would happen. None of us did. But anyone who worked in the Obama White House and tells you they didn’t imagine becoming buddies with the president is either lying or named Michelle. Every so often you’d hear stories. Someone from the Office of Management and Budget got a fist bump in the hallway. A staff secretary was invited to play cards on Air Force One. The moral was obvious. Any moment could change your life forever.
My first chance at a life-changing moment came in November 2011, when Favs asked me to write the Thanksgiving video address. If the State of the Union is on one end of the speechwriting spectrum, “Happy Thanksgiving, America!” is firmly on the other. Still, I was floored. I had written jokes for the president, but this was different. Here was an opportunity to write something profound, something unique, something all-American. I researched past Thanksgiving videos. I read essays about Pilgrims. I went through draft after draft.
Finally, on the day of the taping, I made my way to the Diplomatic Room. It was one of the most beautiful rooms in the residence, the walls covered in a wraparound mural of nineteenth-century American life. By the fireplace, a wooden chair had been set up for the president’s arrival. I stood as far from it as I could. Behind the camera, a woman in a vest and button-down shirt was adjusting the focus.
“First time here?” she asked. I tried to sound nonchalant and casual. Instead, I immediately cracked.
“Yes! Help! What do I do?”
This was how I learned that Hope Hall, the president’s videographer, was a deeply calming presence. A rare free spirit in a building full of joiners, she smiled serenely. Then she told me not to worry. All I had to do was wait.
So I waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, just as I was beginning to wonder if the whole thing was a nightmare or a practical joke, one of the A/V guys got an e-mail on his BlackBerry.
“He’s moving.”
There was a kind of crackling in the air. Then, a minute later, President Obama walked through the door. Suddenly, my nose itched. Was I allowed to sneeze? Had I turned off my phone? Did I have loose change in my pocket? I was struck with an overwhelming desire to shift my weight from leg to leg.
The president was standing up, so we stood up. He sat down, so we sat down. He looked at the camera, but before he could begin taping, Hope stopped him. “Mr. President, this is David,” she said. “This is the first video he’s ever written for you.”
President Obama looked at me.
“Hey, David,” he said. “How’s it going?”
I had exactly one thought in that moment. I did not realize we were going to have to answer questions. And I have no idea what happened next. I literally blacked out. I went home for Thanksgiving, and my family said, “Have you met Obama yet?” and I said, “Yeah,” and they said, “What did he say?” and I said, “How’s it going?” and they said, “What did you say?” and I said, “I don’t know, I blacked out.”
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?!”