A Conversation with Barack Obama

He has the vices of his virtues. His fluency with policy can make him seem abrupt when he feels a meeting is covering ground he already knows. His confidence and self-reliance—honed in a fatherless childhood—sometimes creates the impression of iciness, even to those devoted to his success. His pragmatism and willingness to change his mind when confronted with new information occasionally drives the liberal element of his coalition to distraction.

To talk to Obama for the record is to watch—and to be part of, given the nature of the exchange—a performance of psychological and intellectual skill. Most politicians instinctively try to disarm you by establishing a personal connection of some kind, usually with a remark about your recent work or a recollection of the last time you met (both the remark and the recollection having been provided moments before by staff). No matter how aware one is of the artifice of the gesture, though, the natural human impulse is to be flattered on some level—I knew he'd remember, or Well, he may be faking it with everybody else, but I bet he really did like that piece.

Obama, at least in my experience, is different. There may be some small talk, but very little; and there is none of the conventional journalistic flirtation-by-compliment. This is business, time is valuable, so let's get on with it. When he answers questions, his gaze is most intense at two very different kinds of moments: when he is repeating, for the bazillionth time, an answer about which he has thought deeply, and when there is spontaneous passion on a point sharpened by conversation.

On Air Force One, his eyes flashed when I asked about his willingness to use American military force, first in Pakistan and then in Iran. "I don't take options off the table when it comes to U.S. security, period," he said. A moment later, he added: "And I assure you I'm not naive," his voice rising ever so slightly, his head tilting back ever so subtly to a commanding angle.

I'm not naive. No, he surely is not—if he were, we would not be having this conversation in the president's cabin but in his Senate office, perhaps, or on a commercial flight between Washington and O'Hare. A series of counterintuitive bets won him this plane, the chief one being that Americans were open to complexity after eight years of a Manichaean ethos. "The American people, I think, not only have a toleration but also a hunger for explanation and complexity, and a willingness to acknowledge hard problems," Obama said. "I think one of the biggest mistakes that is made in Washington is this notion you have to dumb down things for the public."

He says he refuses to watch cable news (he sticks to sports on TV), and he appears resolved to keep playing the role—Spock with global sex appeal—that has gotten him this far. As he talked about the weight of the decisions that are his to make, he was realistic: "Now, they may—their final results may disappoint, and I think that there will be times where I look back on a decision or a policy and say to myself, 'I should have gone this way instead of that way,' but I never feel like I'm spinning my wheels—at least not yet."

© 2009