Ben Rhodes

Before you wax nostalgic about an American presidency before Donald Trump when Barak Obama was admired the world over, when we weren’t waiting for the next ranting tweet from the White House, when Cabinet members weren’t falling like flies and Capitol Hill was a place where the representatives dutifully did their work as representatives of the people, read Ben Rhodes’ thrilling account as Barak Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter and Deputy National Security Officer.

Trump’s spectre was there all the time with his birtherism, his slander against Mexican immigrants, and barely concealed white nationalism.

Mitch McConnell was there frustrating almost all attempts to turn a Democrat agenda into law.

And Vladimir Putin was executing his disinformation campaigns in Latvia, Italy, Ukraine, and eventually America.

Obama took it on the chin from almost all quarters and his deputies suffered through endless Congressional investigations into palace intrigue, made up conspiracies, and press scrutiny.

Rhodes brought himself into politics through the door of the 9/11 commission. He was a young man with little direction after college. He didn’t appear to be a man driven to “serve” before 9/11 but it sure turned him into a believer afterward.

The problem was he made that transition in his idealistic years. As a White House aide he travelled a million miles in Air Force One, he broke off family holidays and family obligations to attend world changing events and meetings.

When he left after eight years of this grind, tired and dispirited from the verbal abuse he and his friends took, the world hadn’t changed all that much. Yes, there was an Arab Spring, but the few liberated Arab territories were moving toward a new totalitarianism.

Donald Trump was about to tear up American participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership, tear up the Iran nuclear deal, opt out of the Paris environmental accord, make friends with the invader of Crimea, and line his own pocket with endorsements for his hotels and country clubs.

Rhodes tells us that he orchestrated the Camelot moment of Anthony Bourdain and Barak Obama chewing noodles together in a Hanoi eatery. He tells us about his role in the thaw over Cuban policy, and funding to remove unexploded ordnance in Laos.

But in general this isn’t a story that makes you want to jump up and work in high places. It’s a cautionary tale that politics is a blood sport.… (more)

By "the fall", Rhodes means the recent (post-Cold-War) world instances of descent into authoritarianism epitomized so far by the elevation of a "fascistic lunatic" (p 301) in the 2016 US presidential election. By "the world we've made", he partly means the toxic social media and online culture first created in the US. With input from some of his many international contacts, he delves into the cases of Hungary, Russia, and Hong Kong. As for the US, "to help fix what has gone wrong in the world, we have to begin fixing what has gone wrong with ourselves" (p 320). This, I'd say, would have to involve the Republican Party's death, the unlikeliness of which would suggest that the Biden years will just be a last-gasp bubble of enlightened government preceding a permanent descent into benightedness.… (more)

Read it towards the end of the hateful Trump presidency out of a longing for decency and humour – How did Obama do? What made him worthwhile in contrast to this horror clown Trump? Ben Rhodes was an Obama campaign volunteer who became Obama’s foreign affairs speech writer (well actually he was the deputy national security adviser). The longer they stayed in the White House, the closer they got. In his last flight on the Airforce 1 after Trump’s inauguration, to their holiday destination in California, Ben Rhodes was one of the people accompanying the Obamas.

Ben does not have a great sense of humour – or perhaps he hides it well. The best joke he mentions actually concerns himself: George W Bush cracking a joke about the great scholarships that have been named after Ben. What he does well is to describe the terse modes of Obama (in contrast to the affable, charming, joke-cracking wise guy image that sticks). What he also does well is to describe the key events of the two term Obama presidency: the Arab spring promise and back track (with the American securocrats displaying a knee-jerk reaction and supporting the Egyptian army generals after initial hesitations), the Libyan campaign, Osama bin Laden’s killing, the Benghazi tea party hoax and aftermath, Burma opening up, and (in more detail) the resumption of ties with Cuba. What he does not do well is to describe the rise of tea party obstructionist politics (his eye is not on the domestic scene). And he spends too much time on himself (I'd say a typical American trait: I was there! Look at me!).

Pleasantly written though the information density could be a lot higher – less fluff, less ego, more facts and background story please.… (more)