Inside Obama's Brain

I bought this book for someone special as a gift and they enjoyed it so much that they are re-reading it!

Sasha Abramsky's new book, Inside Obama's Brain (Portfolio Books), offers a thoughtful analysis of Obama through the eyes of his friends and colleagues interviewed by Abramsky. If Abramsky does not quite get us inside Obama's brain, he does allow us to explore some of the nearby territory. There is nothing earth-shattering in Abramsky's book, no politically salacious detail that explains who Obama is and why he has governed this country in the past year the way he has. But the book does offer a lot of insights about Obama that serve as an important antidote to the wailing of complaints that occupy the responses to the news of the day. A year after Obama's inauguration, Abramsky gives us back some of the hope that has dissipated in the face of practical politics. To some on the left, Inside Obama's Brain might seem like a historical artifact by this point, written as it was in the late stages of Obama's 2008 campaign and the early months of his presidency, when so many people had high hopes and, Abramsky wrote, "Obama seemed largely to be retaining his appeal."(218) However, these dark days of populist, anti-incumbent anger during the depth of the Bush recession are likely to dissipate this year as the economy recovers. And when the pundits have proven wrong again, Abramsky's book will offer a lot of insights about Obama. The author may strike some on the left as naïvely donning several pairs of rainbow-colored glasses. But this picture of Obama, if sometimes gauzy, is an important story to remember when so many progressives and independents get caught up in the political moment, when compromise is inevitable and high-minded ideals fall a long distance before the power of sleazy senators. Abramsky is not naive. In many ways, this book is a biography of Obama's idealism rather than his pragmatism, although it recognizes both sides of the man. In trying to understand Obama, Abramsky occasionally strains to make his argument. At one point, Abramsky interprets the body language of Obama in a photo of an important meeting during the 2008 economic crisis, positing that Obama's alleged aloofness is "the distance of the sage." It seems less like being Inside Obama's Brain and more like reading a horoscope. And Abramsky devotes three pages to the important role of Bettylu Saltzman in championing Obama to David Axelrod and others, but never mentions her most important contribution: asking Obama to speak at a 2003 rally in Chicago against the war in Iraq. Without a trusted friend like Saltzman in charge, it's unlikely that Obama would have risked coming out to speak at a left-wing rally, and without that speech, Obama would not have been able to trumpet his politically courageous opposition to the war years later, when it became a decisive factor enabling him to defeat Hillary Clinton. But omissions like that are rare. Abramsky offers an unparalleled collection of interesting stories, some of them never told anywhere before, about many of the interesti

Regardless of your political leanings, INSIDE OBAMA'S BRAIN is a fascinating window into what has shaped the personality and character of our 44th President. I approached the book with an open mind, not having read much about the life of Barack Obama. Author Sasha Abramsky seems to have written his book in a way that was for people like myself, incorporating writings from Obama as wel as conversations with those who seem to know him best. The book highlights not just his rise to fame in the world of politics, but the journey he took to understand himself. Pres. Obama's mixed heritage may have been seem by some as just another obstacle for the young man to overcome, but Abramsky highlights it this way: "His very existence challenges social codes and prevailing orthodoxies. Obama is, in many ways, a walking one-man diaspora, a man who can't be defined, or rather confined by his many heritages... To a peculiar degree, he is, as a result, his own creation." That sums up in many ways the 'out of the box' thinking that seems to lead the man who would become America's Commander-In-Chief. Through each challenge and difficulty, there seems to be a "glass half full" approach that kept him striving, achieving and overcoming. INSIDE OBAMA'S BRAIN has all the ingredients needed for a worthwhile read. Above all it reminds us that no matter how dark things may appear around us at any given time, we have to always be on the hunt for the light within us all.

As Obama's rating barely hangs around 50%, the timing of this book's print is impeccable. It reveals the strong sides of Obama's personality and gives a solid ground to the true believers.