The Bridge: The Life And Rise Of Barack Obama Part 10

Then the narrator brings us up to date. He admits that Harvard Law School was not always fun ("three years in poorly lit libraries"), but his idealism and heightened rhetoric are undiminished. In the words of the In the words of the Declaration of Independence, he says, he also hears the spirit of Frederick Dougla.s.s and Martin Delany, of Martin and Malcolm, of j.a.panese families in internment camps and Jewish piece-workers in sweatshops, of dust-bowl farmers and the people of Altgeld. Declaration of Independence, he says, he also hears the spirit of Frederick Dougla.s.s and Martin Delany, of Martin and Malcolm, of j.a.panese families in internment camps and Jewish piece-workers in sweatshops, of dust-bowl farmers and the people of Altgeld.

The story ends as traditional comedies do--with a wedding. When Mich.e.l.le Robinson appears in the story, everything falls into place. Surrounded by his American and African family, by friends from organizing and from law school, from Punahou, Occidental, and Columbia, Obama and Mich.e.l.le are married by Reverend Wright. "To a happy ending "To a happy ending," Obama says as a toast and, in the African tradition, dribbles a little of his drink on the floor for the elders buried in the earth. Everything is reconciled. As befits the form of so many narratives of ascent, Obama has found himself and he has found a wife, a family, a community, a city, a faith, and a cause. At the same time, he has avoided his father's mistakes and grown out of his own. He is at ease. His wedding unites black and white, America and Kenya. And, since nearly all of the millions of people who have read the book read it in the light of an even greater quest, the hero and his story are elevated to mythic levels.

Peter Osnos and his colleagues at Times Books did not have outsized commercial ambitions for at Times Books did not have outsized commercial ambitions for Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father. "We had mid-list hopes for Obama," Osnos said. "Most galleys were done plain then, but we did a nice advance reader's edition, which indicates a certain interest. We were going for the multicultural thing." The book was reviewed positively in the New York Times Times, the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Post, and the Boston Globe Globe, but it received scant publicity. Obama was interviewed in Los Angeles for the cable-television show "Connie Martinson Talks Books"; at the end of the show, Martinson turned to the author and said, "You know, I've never said this to anyone, but you would have a terrific career in politics." As part of a modest book tour, Obama gave readings for small crowds at bookstores including his local, Fifty-seventh Street Books, in Hyde Park. At Eso Won Books At Eso Won Books, an African-American bookstore in Los Angeles, just nine people came to see him, and Obama simply sat everyone in a circle and, after reading for a few minutes, shared details of his life and, ever the community organizer, asked people, "Tell me your name and what you do."

Times Books s.h.i.+pped about twelve thousand copies of Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father and sold nine thousand. For less than ten thousand dollars, Times Books licensed the paperback to Kodansha, a j.a.panese-owned house, which was specializing in multicultural books for an American audience. and sold nine thousand. For less than ten thousand dollars, Times Books licensed the paperback to Kodansha, a j.a.panese-owned house, which was specializing in multicultural books for an American audience.

Dreams first appeared in the summer of 1995. The nineteen-nineties were rich with books by authors eager to write about themselves, their families, their deprivations, addictions, incarcerations, hallucinations, love affairs, illnesses, losses, and redemptions. Some of these books--like William Styron's first appeared in the summer of 1995. The nineteen-nineties were rich with books by authors eager to write about themselves, their families, their deprivations, addictions, incarcerations, hallucinations, love affairs, illnesses, losses, and redemptions. Some of these books--like William Styron's Darkness Visible Darkness Visible, Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes Angela's Ashes, Mary Karr's The Liar's Club The Liar's Club, Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted Girl, Interrupted, Paul Monette's Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, and James McBride's The Color of Water The Color of Water, all published by 1996--fulfilled Obama's literary ambitions: honesty, literary achievement, and astonis.h.i.+ng sales. Obama waited more than a decade before his book became a best-seller.

Obama is hardly the only President to exhibit a literary bent before running for office. The most prolific of the literary Presidents was Theodore Roosevelt, who began his first book, a naval history of the War of 1812, while still an undergraduate at Harvard. As a reader, Roosevelt was heroic, capable of consuming two or three books in a night. to exhibit a literary bent before running for office. The most prolific of the literary Presidents was Theodore Roosevelt, who began his first book, a naval history of the War of 1812, while still an undergraduate at Harvard. As a reader, Roosevelt was heroic, capable of consuming two or three books in a night. His biographer Edmund Morris His biographer Edmund Morris writes that in 1906 (as President!) Roosevelt read five hundred books or more, including writes that in 1906 (as President!) Roosevelt read five hundred books or more, including all all of Trollope's novels, the complete works of Thomas De Quincey, the complete prose of Milton, the poetry of Scott, Poe, and Longfellow, and William Dudley Foulke's of Trollope's novels, the complete works of Thomas De Quincey, the complete prose of Milton, the poetry of Scott, Poe, and Longfellow, and William Dudley Foulke's Life of Oliver P. Morton Life of Oliver P. Morton. In all, Roosevelt wrote thirty-eight books, including, prior to his political career, biographies of Thomas Hart Benton, the Missouri senator and advocate of westward expansion, and Gouverneur Morris, the author of the preamble of the Const.i.tution; a four-volume history, The Winning of the West; The Winning of the West; accounts of his many hunting trips; and scores of literary reviews and scientific articles. Woodrow Wilson, who had a doctorate in history and political science from Johns Hopkins, wrote accounts of his many hunting trips; and scores of literary reviews and scientific articles. Woodrow Wilson, who had a doctorate in history and political science from Johns Hopkins, wrote Congressional Government Congressional Government and other academic studies well before his election as governor of New Jersey and then as President. Herbert Hoover was not unliterary. With his wife, Lou, he translated from Latin the Renaissance treatise on mining by Agricola, and other academic studies well before his election as governor of New Jersey and then as President. Herbert Hoover was not unliterary. With his wife, Lou, he translated from Latin the Renaissance treatise on mining by Agricola, De re metallica De re metallica. John Kennedy's literary efforts carried with them the aura of gilded sponsors.h.i.+p and professional a.s.sistance: his father promoted for publication his Harvard thesis "Why England Slept" and his aide Theodore Sorensen and others were more than helpful in the industrial production of Profiles in Courage of Profiles in Courage.

Dreams from My Father ought not to be overvalued as a purely literary text; other writer-politicians such as Vaclav Havel and Andre Malraux wrote immensely greater and more mature work before holding office. But few American politicians of consequence before Obama have ventured to describe themselves ought not to be overvalued as a purely literary text; other writer-politicians such as Vaclav Havel and Andre Malraux wrote immensely greater and more mature work before holding office. But few American politicians of consequence before Obama have ventured to describe themselves personally personally with anything like the force and emotional openness of with anything like the force and emotional openness of Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father. It is enough to say that Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father is a good book that became, through political circ.u.mstance, an important one. is a good book that became, through political circ.u.mstance, an important one.

Early in the history of the Republic, it was impossible to imagine political self-projections at all. The Founding Fathers were philosopher-statesmen who saw the executive branch as a check on the unruly and corruptible legislature. Campaigning itself was a degradation of the office. "Motives of delicacy "Motives of delicacy," Was.h.i.+ngton said, "have prevented me hitherto from conversing or writing on this subject, whenever I could avoid it with decency." Was.h.i.+ngton established the American Presidency as an office neither to be sought nor to be declined. Even in a democracy, it was somehow bestowed, not battled for. The historian M. J. Heale has called the early Presidential posture "the mute tribune."

Self-presentation in the American political culture begins in earnest with Andrew Jackson. After retiring from the military, in 1815, and setting up house on a thousand-acre plantation near Nashville, Jackson hired John Eaton, a young lawyer and one of his former soldiers in the War of 1812, to write his biography. Several years later, Jackson used Eaton's hagiographic Life of Andrew Jackson Life of Andrew Jackson for his 1824 presidential race. The book, considered the first campaign biography ever published in the United States, presented Jackson as something utterly new in American politics: "the self-made man." When Jackson ultimately won the Presidency in 1828, his choice for Secretary of War was his biographer, John Eaton. for his 1824 presidential race. The book, considered the first campaign biography ever published in the United States, presented Jackson as something utterly new in American politics: "the self-made man." When Jackson ultimately won the Presidency in 1828, his choice for Secretary of War was his biographer, John Eaton.

Jackson's brand of self-description has never faded from American politics. In 1852, just after completing The Blithedale Romance The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a slapdash biography of his Bowdoin College friend Franklin Pierce. It took around a month to complete. Hawthorne's reward was a consuls.h.i.+p in Liverpool; the country's reward was a miserable President. William Dean Howells wrote a biography of Lincoln in the course of a few weeks and without ever meeting the man. The portrait, which was published in 1860, is the foundation of a million others: the "rude cabin of the settler," the earnest, rail-splitting autodidact, the "young backwoodsman" reading Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England Commentaries on the Laws of England "under a wide-spreading oak" in the woods near New Salem. "under a wide-spreading oak" in the woods near New Salem. "People went by, and he took no account "People went by, and he took no account of them," Howells wrote of Lincoln's studies in the forest, "the salutations of acquaintances were returned with silence, or a vacant stare." of them," Howells wrote of Lincoln's studies in the forest, "the salutations of acquaintances were returned with silence, or a vacant stare."

The stories have their variations: the modest warrior-statesmen dominate, though there occasionally appears an intellectual woodsman, like Lincoln. But the template remains basically the same: the rise from modest circ.u.mstances to an adulthood of selfless service to flag and country. The biographers recount Jackson's mother telling her boys about the poverty of Ireland; Henry Clay's loss of his father in childhood; William Henry Harrison's log cabin; and Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill. F.D.R.'s early biographers describe the cla.s.srooms of Groton as if they were carved from pinewood. "American campaign biographies "American campaign biographies still follow a script written nearly two centuries ago," the historian Jill Lepore writes. "East of piffle and west of hok.u.m, the Boy from Hope always grows up to be the Man of the People. Will we ever stop electing Andrew Jackson?" still follow a script written nearly two centuries ago," the historian Jill Lepore writes. "East of piffle and west of hok.u.m, the Boy from Hope always grows up to be the Man of the People. Will we ever stop electing Andrew Jackson?"

Obama's Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father was not intended as a campaign biography, but it ended up acting as one. For a politician who was making the personal political and placing his own story and background at the center of his candidacy, writing was not intended as a campaign biography, but it ended up acting as one. For a politician who was making the personal political and placing his own story and background at the center of his candidacy, writing Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father was the ultimate act of self-creation. Its stories are at the center of Obama's thinking, his self-regard, his public rhetoric. was the ultimate act of self-creation. Its stories are at the center of Obama's thinking, his self-regard, his public rhetoric.

In the closing weeks of the 2008 Presidential campaign, as it seemed more and more evident that only a miracle worthy of Dorian Gray could rescue John McCain from defeat, a little-known conservative writer, magazine editor, and former talk-radio-show host named Jack Cas.h.i.+ll advanced a theory popular on various right-wing Web sites, including American Thinker and World Net Daily, that Barack Obama was not the author of of the 2008 Presidential campaign, as it seemed more and more evident that only a miracle worthy of Dorian Gray could rescue John McCain from defeat, a little-known conservative writer, magazine editor, and former talk-radio-show host named Jack Cas.h.i.+ll advanced a theory popular on various right-wing Web sites, including American Thinker and World Net Daily, that Barack Obama was not the author of Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father. This was a charge that, if ever proved true, or believed believed to be true among enough voters, could have been the end of the candidacy. to be true among enough voters, could have been the end of the candidacy. Obama himself admitted Obama himself admitted that many people had got involved in his campaign "because they feel they know me through my books." This accusation of fraud possessed a diabolical potency for those who wished him ill. It suggested that the man poised to become the first African-American President, one celebrated for his language and his eloquence, could not possibly be such a good writer. that many people had got involved in his campaign "because they feel they know me through my books." This accusation of fraud possessed a diabolical potency for those who wished him ill. It suggested that the man poised to become the first African-American President, one celebrated for his language and his eloquence, could not possibly be such a good writer.

The true author of Obama's book, Jack Cas.h.i.+ll suggested, was likely Bill Ayers, best known as the co-founder of the Weather Underground and the "terrorist" referred to in speeches by Sarah Palin. Cas.h.i.+ll wrote that he had carefully studied books by Ayers, who had written a memoir and books about education, and through a process that he called "deconstruction," this latter-day Derrida charged that these volumes contained too much in common to skirt suspicion. For instance, Cas.h.i.+ll wrote For instance, Cas.h.i.+ll wrote, they both misspelled Frantz Fanon as "Franz." They were both obsessed with eyes: "Ayers is fixated with faces, especially eyes. He writes of 'sparkling' eyes, 's.h.i.+ning' eyes, 'laughing' eyes, 'twinkling' eyes, eyes 'like ice.' ... Obama is also fixated with faces, especially eyes. He also writes of 'sparkling' eyes, 's.h.i.+ning' eyes, 'laughing' eyes, 'twinkling' eyes.... Obama also used the highly distinctive phrase 'like ice.'"

And so on.

Cas.h.i.+ll's a.s.sertions might well have remained a mere twinkling in the Web's farthest lunatic orbit had it not been for the fact that more powerful voices hoped to give his theory wider currency. A writer for the A writer for the National Review's National Review's popular blog popular blog The Corner declared Cas.h.i.+ll's scholarly readings "thorough, thoughtful, and alarming." And Rush Limbaugh, during his nationwide radio broadcast on October 10, 2008, digressed from a mocking segment about The Corner declared Cas.h.i.+ll's scholarly readings "thorough, thoughtful, and alarming." And Rush Limbaugh, during his nationwide radio broadcast on October 10, 2008, digressed from a mocking segment about Dreams from My Father Dreams from My Father to take up the Ayers-as-author theory: to take up the Ayers-as-author theory: You know, there are stories out there, he may not have written this book.... There's no evidence that Obama has ever written anything prior to this except a poem, and the poem was as dumb as "A River, Rock, and Tree" that Maya Angelou did at the Slickster's inauguration back in 1993. There's no evidence that he has any kind of writing talent. We haven't seen anything he wrote at Harvard Law, or when he was at Columbia, or any tests that he's written. But if you read his books, if you listen to his audio reading of the book here, you don't hear this when Obama goes out and speaks. I would like for him to be given a test on his own book. You know how Charles Barkley once said he was misquoted in his own book? (laughs) I would like for Obama to actually be given a test on his own book.

This may not have been Limbaugh's most racist insinuation of the campaign. His delighted airing of the song "Barack, the Magic Negro," sung to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon," probably reached a wider audience, and his description of Obama as a "Halfrican American" was, perhaps, more immediately pernicious, as it played on the rumors that the candidate lacked a proper American birth certificate, attended a madra.s.sa as a boy in Indonesia, and was, in fact, either a Kenyan or an Indonesian citizen.

Still, Cas.h.i.+ll's and Limbaugh's libel about Obama's memoir--the denial of literacy, the denial of authors.h.i.+p--had a particularly ugly pedigree. Writing elevated a slave from non-being Writing elevated a slave from non-being, from commodity, to human status, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has written: a slave wrote, above all, to "demonstrate her or his own members.h.i.+p in the human community." In Frederick Dougla.s.s's narrative In Frederick Dougla.s.s's narrative, his master, Mr. Auld, says, "Learning would spoil the best n.i.g.g.e.r in the world.... If you teach that n.i.g.g.e.r (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him."

And yet writers like Dougla.s.s had to call on white men to authenticate their texts, the better to disprove the antebellum Jack Cas.h.i.+lls and Rush Limbaughs ready to declare fraud. For the wary white readers.h.i.+p, the abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips provided prefaces for Dougla.s.s's book that represented seals of white endors.e.m.e.nt. Garrison had first heard Dougla.s.s describe his life story at a speech at the Atheneum on Nantucket, in 1841, and now he was prepared to vouch for his text. "Mr. Dougla.s.s has very properly "Mr. Dougla.s.s has very properly chosen to write his own Narrative, in his own style," Garrison wrote, "and according to the best of his ability, rather than to employ some one else. It is, therefore, entirely his own production." Garrison vouched for Dougla.s.s's literacy. The t.i.tle, too, indicates a need to deny a sham. It is called the chosen to write his own Narrative, in his own style," Garrison wrote, "and according to the best of his ability, rather than to employ some one else. It is, therefore, entirely his own production." Garrison vouched for Dougla.s.s's literacy. The t.i.tle, too, indicates a need to deny a sham. It is called the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Dougla.s.s, an American Slave, Written by Himself Narrative of the Life of Frederick Dougla.s.s, an American Slave, Written by Himself.

A century and a half later, thinking a degree of racial progress had been achieved, Barack Obama and his publisher had not thought to collect such endors.e.m.e.nts.

Part Three

So he tested these truths of his against the blight of Chicago of his against the blight of Chicago.--Saul Bellow, The Dean's December The Dean's December

Chapter Seven.

Somebody n.o.body Sent.

In the summer of 1991, Barack Obama moved back to Chicago and waited for his public life to begin. Abner Mikva, a fixture of liberal independent politics in Chicago and a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, had offered him a clerks.h.i.+p, and although Obama turned him down, the two men became friends, having breakfast or lunch downtown or at the Quadrangle Club in Hyde Park to talk politics. Obama confided that at some point--soon, he hoped--he wanted to run for office. Mikva was coming to see that, while Obama was more serene than Bill Clinton, far less grasping and needy, he was immodest in his ambition. "I thought, this guy has more chutzpah than d.i.c.k Tracy," Mikva said. "You don't just show up in Chicago and plant your flag."

By way of avuncular counsel, Mikva told Obama one of the most famous stories in the history of Chicago politics. Mikva grew up in Milwaukee, where the political culture was so open that, legend had it, someone who volunteered at party headquarters in the morning could wind up county chairman by nightfall. In 1948, Mikva, a student at the University of Chicago Law School, wanted to work for the Democratic Party, which was running two liberals: Paul Douglas for the Senate and Adlai Stevenson for governor. On the way home from cla.s.s one night, Mikva stopped by the ward headquarters. "Timothy O'Sullivan, Ward Committeeman" was painted on the window. Mikva went in and asked if he could work for Stevenson and Douglas. The ward committeeman took the cigar out of his mouth and asked, "Who sent you?"

"n.o.body sent me," Mikva replied. "I just want to help."

The committeeman jammed the cheroot back in his mouth and frowned.

"We don't want n.o.body that n.o.body sent," he said and dismissed the young law student.

Recalling the story and Obama's resigned reaction, Mikva said, "That's Chicago. It's a place where people put their relatives in jobs, where the machine ruled and, to an extent, still does. You just don't show up and come barging in."

Obama did his best to steer clear of the machine. He spent a dozen years as a lawyer and as a teacher. His part-time work in both professions also helped shape his political sensibility, deepen his thinking (especially about the law and race), and widen his web of a.s.sociations. Judson Miner, who was Obama's mentor at Davis Miner, was a model of anti-establishment, anti-machine politics. In 1969, two years after graduating from law school and a year after the riots at the Democratic Convention, he founded the Chicago Council of Lawyers, an organization of progressive attorneys intent on creating an alternative bar a.s.sociation to challenge the failings of the legal system and improve services for the poor. The council issued reports a.n.a.lyzing candidates for the bench, campaigned for judicial reforms, and placed articles in the local press. Miner did not cultivate the radical reputation of a William Kunstler, but, when he was still in his thirties, he gained a singular reputation in civil rights. In Chicago, he was the the civil-rights lawyer, known for representing plaintiffs in s.e.x- and race-discrimination suits, voting-rights suits, tenants'-rights and corporate-whistleblower cases. Among African-Americans, especially, Miner was celebrated for having been Harold Was.h.i.+ngton's corporation counsel--the top legal job in City Hall--in his final two years in office. civil-rights lawyer, known for representing plaintiffs in s.e.x- and race-discrimination suits, voting-rights suits, tenants'-rights and corporate-whistleblower cases. Among African-Americans, especially, Miner was celebrated for having been Harold Was.h.i.+ngton's corporation counsel--the top legal job in City Hall--in his final two years in office.

Davis Miner was a boutique firm with around a dozen lawyers. As with all small civil-rights firms, one of its biggest problems was that, when it sued the city or a large corporation, it was almost always in opposition to a huge LaSalle Street firm that was able to throw armies of a.s.sociates into the fray, filing one defense motion after another, swamping the plaintiff under an avalanche of work and acc.u.mulating fees.

From 1992 to 1995, Obama was an ordinary a.s.sociate at Davis Miner, even though he spent a great deal of time writing and some time teaching. From 1997 until 2004, when he ran for the U.S. Senate, he was "of counsel," a part-time position paid by the hour. Obama rarely went to court and his overall legal record was modest. He appeared in court He appeared in court as counsel in five district-court cases and five cases heard by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. All told, Miner said, Obama "contributed" to thirty cases, often in a secondary or tertiary role. Mainly, he drafted memoranda and motions, and prepared depositions. as counsel in five district-court cases and five cases heard by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. All told, Miner said, Obama "contributed" to thirty cases, often in a secondary or tertiary role. Mainly, he drafted memoranda and motions, and prepared depositions. "I was one of the better writers "I was one of the better writers," Obama recalled. "I ended up doing the more cerebral writing, less trial work. That's actually something I regret, not doing more trial work."

Obama may not have compiled a voluminous case record, but the cases he worked on reflected the sense of virtue he sought when he turned down corporate jobs and judicial clerks.h.i.+ps. Unlike so many of his Harvard cla.s.smates, who were making six-figure salaries at corporate firms and expecting more, Obama, at a salary of around fifty thousand dollars a year, was battling corporations in court rather than defending them. In 1994, he worked on a suit against Citibank and its mortgage practices regarding minorities. The same year, he was on a team of lawyers that, in the Seventh Circuit, defended a securities trader named Ahmad Baravati, who had been blackballed by his employer, Josephthal, Lyon & Ross, after reporting fraudulent practices at the firm. Arguing that an arbitrator had the right to award Baravati a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in punitive damages, Obama parried with Judge Richard Posner, one of the leading conservative jurists in the country. In the end, Posner sided with Obama's client. ("I wrote the opinion on the case, but I don't remember any of the lawyers," Posner said. "It wasn't a memorable case.") In 1995, the governor of Illinois, Jim Edgar, refused to implement legislation that allowed citizens to register to vote when they applied for a driver's license. Edgar, a Republican, was wary of the legislation, for it was sure to lead to the registration of many more Democrats than Republicans. A number of progressive groups A number of progressive groups, including the League of Women Voters and the a.s.sociation of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), represented by Obama, joined the Justice Department in a lawsuit. Obama, whose keenest legal interest at Harvard and Chicago was voting rights, did not speak during the courtroom proceedings but his side won its case.

As a lecturer at the University of Chicago, Obama entered a world quite apart from community organizing on the South Side, civil-rights law downtown, and even Harvard Law School. Obama had known plenty of conservatives at Harvard; he won the presidency of the at the University of Chicago, Obama entered a world quite apart from community organizing on the South Side, civil-rights law downtown, and even Harvard Law School. Obama had known plenty of conservatives at Harvard; he won the presidency of the Law Review Law Review in part because the conservative minority thought that he was a liberal who would listen to them. The law-school faculty at Chicago was ideologically diverse--and prided itself, above all, on an atmosphere of fierce and open argument--but the conservative strain ran deep. in part because the conservative minority thought that he was a liberal who would listen to them. The law-school faculty at Chicago was ideologically diverse--and prided itself, above all, on an atmosphere of fierce and open argument--but the conservative strain ran deep.

There were plenty of liberals on the faculty; Geoffrey Stone, Abner Mikva, Lawrence Lessig, Elena Kagan, David Strauss, Diane Wood, Martha Nussbaum, and Ca.s.s Sunstein were among Obama's acquaintances and friends. But, like the department of economics, the law school had a strong contingent of "law and economics" libertarians, like Richard Epstein, Alan Sykes, and Reagan-appointed jurists like Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook. Just as the economics school attracted students wanting to get a full dose of the monetarist theory developed there by Milton Friedman and George Stigler, many Chicago students set aside acceptances at Harvard, Yale, or Columbia in order to study with the contingent of right-leaning rationalists in Hyde Park. Their views were no less varied than the liberals', but they were, as a whole, far less interested in terms like "justice" and "fairness" ("terms which have no content," according to Posner) than in the economic liberty and interests of the individual. Since the late nineteen-seventies, generally speaking, the conservatives at Chicago had disdained what they saw as a vapid consensus among liberal legal academics. They opposed government regulation, judicial activism, and legislation that aimed at redistributing income. They spoke as much about markets as they did about legal precedent. They argued in favor of a less restricted Presidency and against social policy imposed by judicial decree.

Chicago's law school is a third the size of Harvard's, but, proportionally, the number of conservatives on the faculty and of students active in the Federalist Society was far greater. One consequence of the Reagan revolution, however, was that the Chicago faculty had lost members to the federal bench, the Justice Department, and the regulatory agencies. As a result, some of the conservatives who remained when Obama arrived thought that the school's uniqueness had eroded several years earlier. "The height of the conservatism was in the late nineteen-seventies, which was a bad period, a lot of disorder, with a sense of the country declining and a lot of over-regulation," Posner said. "There was a fair amount of resistance to affirmative action and to the relaxing of academic standards, and the conservatives, even into the eighties, were outspoken and distinctive. But even as elements of conservatism persisted at Chicago, it's important not to exaggerate it, that it is a relative matter. In every election, a majority of the Chicago faculty votes for the Democrat, whereas at Harvard or Yale law school it's probably closer to ninety percent." In 2008, Posner, perhaps the most distinguished conservative on the federal bench, came to admire Obama--"especially," he said, "after one of my clerks, who had worked with him at the Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review, told me that he wasn't even all that liberal. I was rea.s.sured."

At Chicago, the const.i.tutional-law curriculum is divided into separate courses on structural questions and individual rights. Obama taught the latter, focusing on such issues as equal protection, voting rights, and privacy, rather than on such questions as the separation of powers.

Obama also taught a seminar course called Current Issues in Racism and the Law. He had small groups of students prepare presentations on one of a range of complicated questions: interracial adoptions; all-black, all-male schools; the gerrymandering of voting districts according to race; discriminatory sentencing; hate crimes; welfare policy; the reproductive freedom of women who have taken drugs during pregnancy or neglected their children; reparations for the descendants of slaves; hate speech; school financing. Rather than a.s.sign whole books, Obama, like many other professors, a.s.sembled a thick packet of readings. To establish a historical and theoretical understanding of race, he a.s.signed excerpts from George Fredrickson's The Arrogance of Race The Arrogance of Race and Kwame Anthony Appiah's and Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race The Uncompleted Argument: DuBois and the Illusion of Race. Both readings deal with historical arguments over whether race is a matter of biology or of social construction. In order to confront Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal policy, of s.h.i.+fting Native American populations west of the Mississippi River, he a.s.signed not only court cases and Jackson's proclamation but also excerpts from The Law of Nations The Law of Nations, by Emeric de Vattel, a Swiss legal philosopher of natural law, who exerted a strong influence on the American Founders. He a.s.signed the essential court cases on slavery, a speech by the nationalist Martin Delany, and two texts by Frederick Dougla.s.s: "Is It Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?" and "The Right to Criticize the American Inst.i.tutions." Similarly, he covered Reconstruction, retrenchment, and the rise of Jim Crow by a.s.signing the essential legislation and court cases--the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, the South Carolina Black Codes, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, Plessy v. Ferguson--and a series of doc.u.mentations of lynchings, and excerpts from Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk, and speeches by Marcus Garvey, the leading figure of early black nationalism. In covering the civil-rights era, Obama a.s.signed King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and speeches by Malcolm X but also conservative critiques like Robert Bork's "Civil Rights--A Challenge." He included an ideologically pitched exchange on affirmative action and civil-rights law among Randall Kennedy, the liberal African-American law professor at Harvard; Charles Cooper, a conservative litigator who worked in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lino Graglia, a law professor at the University of Texas who refers to affirmative action as a "fraud." The three essays that Obama a.s.signed were first presented by the Federalist Society at Stanford in 1990, at a symposium on the future of civil-rights law, and published the following year in a special issue of the right-leaning Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

In the final part of the course, Obama's students read another series of ideologically opposed texts: Shelby Steele's conservative essay "I'm Black, You're White, Who's Innocent?"; Derrick Bell's radical critique in Faces at the Bottom of the Well; Faces at the Bottom of the Well; Bart Landry's a.n.a.lysis of the scale and nature of the new black middle cla.s.s; John Bunzel's study of racial tension at Stanford University; and an excerpt from William Julius Wilson's Bart Landry's a.n.a.lysis of the scale and nature of the new black middle cla.s.s; John Bunzel's study of racial tension at Stanford University; and an excerpt from William Julius Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged The Truly Disadvantaged, a sociological examination of the social isolation of the African-American poor.

When, during the Presidential campaign, the New York Times Times published Obama's syllabus online, the reporter Jodi Kantor solicited opinions of the course from four prominent law professors across the ideological spectrum. Akhil Reed Amar, a const.i.tutional scholar at Yale, praised the "moral seriousness" of Obama's syllabus for the race seminar and went so far as to compare Obama to Lincoln as a legal and moral thinker, a politician who, Amar said, understood the Const.i.tution better than the Supreme Court justices of his era. "Some of the great mysteries and tragedies of human life and American society--involving marriage, divorce, childbearing, cloning, the right to die with dignity, infertility, s.e.xual orientation, and yes, of course, race--are probed in these materials in ways that encourage students to think not just about the law, but about justice, and truth, and morality," Amar wrote. The results were effusive on the right as well. John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University and a former clerk to Clarence Thomas, said that Obama was "leading his students in an honest a.s.sessment of competing views," and a libertarian, Randy Barnett, a professor of law at Georgetown and a senior fellow at the Cato Inst.i.tute, remarked that Obama's summaries of key legal questions of race and the law were "remarkably free of the sort of cant and polemics that all too often afflicts academic discussions of race." Overall, Pamela S. Karlan, a voting-issues specialist at Stanford Law School, inferred from reading Obama's syllabus and his examination questions for the const.i.tutional-law cla.s.s that he "could have been a first-rate academic had his interests gone in that direction." published Obama's syllabus online, the reporter Jodi Kantor solicited opinions of the course from four prominent law professors across the ideological spectrum. Akhil Reed Amar, a const.i.tutional scholar at Yale, praised the "moral seriousness" of Obama's syllabus for the race seminar and went so far as to compare Obama to Lincoln as a legal and moral thinker, a politician who, Amar said, understood the Const.i.tution better than the Supreme Court justices of his era. "Some of the great mysteries and tragedies of human life and American society--involving marriage, divorce, childbearing, cloning, the right to die with dignity, infertility, s.e.xual orientation, and yes, of course, race--are probed in these materials in ways that encourage students to think not just about the law, but about justice, and truth, and morality," Amar wrote. The results were effusive on the right as well. John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University and a former clerk to Clarence Thomas, said that Obama was "leading his students in an honest a.s.sessment of competing views," and a libertarian, Randy Barnett, a professor of law at Georgetown and a senior fellow at the Cato Inst.i.tute, remarked that Obama's summaries of key legal questions of race and the law were "remarkably free of the sort of cant and polemics that all too often afflicts academic discussions of race." Overall, Pamela S. Karlan, a voting-issues specialist at Stanford Law School, inferred from reading Obama's syllabus and his examination questions for the const.i.tutional-law cla.s.s that he "could have been a first-rate academic had his interests gone in that direction."

The extravagance of these professional opinions was undoubtedly influenced by the emotions of the 2008 election campaign, but they accord with what Obama's students say about their experiences in his cla.s.ses over the years. Liberal students considered Obama a "G.o.dsend," one former student said, for his open-mindedness and his personality. His teaching ratings were among the highest at the law school and invariably gave him credit for a capacity to get students to see the complexities of a given question, and for a cool yet welcoming demeanor. One student, Byron Rodriguez, who took courses with Obama in both racism and the law and voting rights, said that he was especially sympathetic to students from disadvantaged backgrounds and was clearly liberal, but his style was always to try to present all views and challenge the students to argue with them without being dismissive. "I remember reading Bork's opposition to the Civil Rights Act and Obama even putting that into the best light," Rodriguez said.

"He was different from other professors at Chicago," Daniel Sokol, a student in Obama's cla.s.s on Race and the Law, who teaches law at the University of Florida, said. "A lot of the faculty was heavily Socratic in method, even in upper-level courses. Obama was demanding with questions, but he wouldn't just stick on one student. It was a small seminar. It felt more pleasant when he asked tough questions. It wasn't the inquisition model of teaching, which was so popular at U. of C."

One senior faculty member, Richard Epstein, a libertarian known for his corrosive wit and his fire-hose Socratic style, laughed as he acknowledged stylistic differences with Obama, saying that some professors--"guys like me"--listen to a student make a wrong-headed a.n.a.lysis and pounce on it, goading the student into studying, and thinking, harder. Obama, Epstein said, was more the kind of teacher who listened to a wrong-headed a.n.a.lysis and then, by way of reframing it, corrected and deepened it, always careful to make the student feel listened to.

In a fairly traditional way, Obama insisted that students learn to understand and argue all sides of a question. "But there was a moment when he let his guard down," one former student recalled. "He told us what he thought about reparations. He agreed entirely with the theory theory of reparations. But in practice he didn't think it was really workable. You could tell that he thought he had let the cat out of the bag and felt uncomfortable. To agree with reparations in theory means we go past apology and say we can actually change the dynamics of the country based on other situations where you saw reparations. For example, the cla.s.s talked about reparations in other settings: Germany and the State of Israel. American Indians. We talked about apology and the South African Truth Commission. After fifteen minutes of this, as the complexities emerged--who is black, how far back do you go, what about recent immigrants still feeling racism, do they have a claim--finally, he said, 'That is why it's unworkable.'" of reparations. But in practice he didn't think it was really workable. You could tell that he thought he had let the cat out of the bag and felt uncomfortable. To agree with reparations in theory means we go past apology and say we can actually change the dynamics of the country based on other situations where you saw reparations. For example, the cla.s.s talked about reparations in other settings: Germany and the State of Israel. American Indians. We talked about apology and the South African Truth Commission. After fifteen minutes of this, as the complexities emerged--who is black, how far back do you go, what about recent immigrants still feeling racism, do they have a claim--finally, he said, 'That is why it's unworkable.'"

As he was as an organizer and as a law student, Obama was known for his impulse to reconcile opposing points of view, to see where the convergences were, and, by doing so, to form alliances. Ca.s.s Sunstein, a prolific legal scholar who taught at Chicago and later also at Harvard, was one of Obama's closest friends at the law school. Sunstein regards himself as both a liberal and a judicial minimalist, and shares Obama's intellectual temperament--a reluctance to be too far ahead of the electorate on a prevailing legal and moral question. During the Presidential campaign During the Presidential campaign, when Sunstein was asked about Obama's view of legal ideology, it seemed that there was not a great deal of difference between the att.i.tudes he expressed in the cla.s.sroom at Chicago and those he expressed as a politician. "If there's a deep moral conviction that gay marriage is wrong, if a majority of Americans believe on principle that marriage is an inst.i.tution for men and women, I'm not at all sure [Obama] shares that view, but he's not an in-your-face type," Sunstein told the writer Larissa MacFarquhar. "To go in the face of people with religious convictions--that's something he'd be very reluctant to do," he added. "[John] Rawls talks about civic toleration as a modus vivendi, a way that we can live together, and some liberals think that way.... But I think with Obama it's more like Learned Hand when he said, 'The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.' Obama takes that really seriously. I think the reason that conservatives are O.K. with him is both that he might agree with them on some issues and that even if he comes down on a different side he knows he might be wrong. I can't think of an American politician who has thought in that way, ever."

Obama was not much involved in the workshops, seminars, and lunches at which faculty members regularly exchanged ideas and discussed their works-in-progress. He was somewhat removed: first because he was working on Project Vote, his book, and his own law cases, and later because of his life as a politician. "My sense is that he was really close only to Ca.s.s Sunstein and a couple of other liberals," Richard Posner said. Nevertheless, he was well known and well liked. "He always had that aura: He said 'good morning' and you thought it was an event," Epstein said. "He has that kind of charisma--just like Bill Clinton, but without the seediness of Clinton. He makes you feel embraced and listened to. Clinton was always seducing you. This is a more wholesome version of the experience."

Obama was a consistent presence in Hyde Park for a dozen years; when he won a seat in the state legislature and had to be in Springfield for much of the week, he moved his cla.s.s schedule to Monday mornings and Friday afternoons. Although he was a devoted teacher, he showed little interest in becoming a legal academic. He never published a single academic article. Nevertheless, the deans at Chicago regarded him so highly, and were so eager to increase the diversity of their faculty, that they eventually gave him the rank of "senior lecturer," a t.i.tle that had been given to three judges on the Seventh Circuit, two conservatives (Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook) and a liberal (Diane Wood). Even though he had no publications to his name, they hinted at the possibility of tenure. Obama politely demurred. "Barack did not focus on academic publication, because he knew where he was going, and that was to public service," the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who teaches at the law school, said. "That's what made him happy. That's what made his eyes light up."

Before embarking on the story of the political rise of Barack Obama, it may be useful to take time out for a mental exercise. Here it is: on the story of the political rise of Barack Obama, it may be useful to take time out for a mental exercise. Here it is: Name your state senator.

No, not the two legislative t.i.tans who represent your state in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. The question is, who represents your district in your state capital?

Fine. Now that you have Googled the name and are trying to wrap your mind around the p.r.o.nunciation and other such details, imagine that this undoubtedly decent, if generally anonymous, man or woman emerges in a very few years from Trenton or Harrisburg, Tallaha.s.see or Lansing to become, as if in a reality television show, President of the United States. Add into the equation that he or she is African-American, while every previous resident of the White House, for more than two centuries, has been a white male Protestant, except for the thousand-day interregnum when the President was a white male Roman Catholic.

Who could have predicted it? As it happens, one of Barack Obama's friends from Hawaii. In his memoir, In his memoir, Livin' the Blues Livin' the Blues, the poet and radical sage of the Waikiki Jungle, Frank Marshall Davis, wrote, "Until the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, we could aim our hope no higher than selection for what was termed the president's 'Kitchen Cabinet.' Since then we have been inching our way slowly toward the oval room." Still, it's hard to imagine that Davis had in mind the skinny, disaffected kid who used to come around for advice in Waikiki about how to live his life as a black man in America.

As late as 1994, Barack Obama's ambitions for public life existed mainly in the realm of fantasy; the avenues of approach, the paths to office, seemed blocked. All the interesting political positions, and even most of the dull ones, were taken.

Starting a political career requires a great deal more than the desire to do so. It requires an opportunity, and a network to seize it. When Obama returned to Chicago in 1991, it was not at all clear where the opportunity would be. City Hall, where his closest organizing friends thought that he would wind up, was out of the question, perhaps for many years to come. Richard M. Daley, who had vastly improved his skills since losing to Harold Was.h.i.+ngton and had adapted to the racial diversity of the city in a way that his father never could, seemed a permanent fixture. City Hall had become no less dynastic than the House of Habsburg. The congressman in Obama's district, the former Black Panther Bobby Rush, routinely won re-election with minimal campaigning. The alderman in the Fourth Ward--Obama's ward, in Hyde Park--was a former high-school history teacher, an African-American woman named Toni Preckwinkle. It had taken a couple of tries before she won the post, in 1991, but Preckwinkle was popular, her seat secure. The fact that she was light-skinned and married to a white man, a teacher named Zeus Preckwinkle, was sometimes a source of nasty talk in some parts of the ward, but it wasn't much of a problem; she was seen as honest, independent, liberal, with deep roots in the community. Finally, the state senator in Obama's area, another former educator, Alice Palmer, was no less beloved than Rush and Preckwinkle. She was known for supporting progressive legislation in Springfield and helping to lead anti-apartheid rallies in Chicago. A veteran of the Harold Was.h.i.+ngton campaigns, Palmer had especially solid support among civil-rights-era leaders in town, including an influential contingent of black nationalists. Palmer's husband was also a source of her popularity. Edward (Buzz) Palmer had been a leader of the Afro-American Patrolmen's League, a progressive organization in a police department with a reputation for racism and unwarranted violence.

And so Obama had to practice patience.

In the meantime, he went about meeting people. Obama, it turned out, was a world-cla.s.s networker. Just as he had gone from church to church as an organizer, now he and Mich.e.l.le accepted countless invitations to lunches, dinners, c.o.c.ktail parties, barbecues, and receptions for right-minded charities. They also joined the East Bank Club, downtown, a vast gym and social center on the Chicago River, where so many Chicagoans of a certain cla.s.s gathered to exercise, eat lunch, get their nails done or their hair cut, and, as if by total accident, run into one another. The East Bank Club was, as one member described it, the "world's first urban country club," a place where you would see Oprah Winfrey in her sweats, members of the Joffrey Ballet stretching out; you saw local politicians, business people, Jews, African-Americans--a place, according to one prominent member, that "reinforces a center to this provincial town and provides a nexus of relations.h.i.+ps for people obsessed with being buff." The members.h.i.+p price, by the standards of New York or Los Angeles, was modest, and so, too, was the level of sn.o.bbery.

The Obamas' social world began to expand exponentially. They were intelligent, attractive, eager, and ambitious, and they entered many worlds at once: the liberal, integrated world of Hyde Park; the intellectual world of the University of Chicago; the boards of charitable foundations; the growing post-civil-rights world of African-Americans who went to prestigious universities and were making their fortunes and ready to exert political influence. The Obamas were young and idealistic, and older people wanted to befriend and guide them. Despite Obama's rejection of a job offer at Sidley Austin and Mich.e.l.le's decision to quit the firm, Newton Minow took them to the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, where they ran into prominent friends. Bettylu Saltzman, the heiress and political activist who befriended Obama during Project Vote, helped guide Barack and Mich.e.l.le to some of the wealthiest people in town. And, through his teaching colleagues, Obama became increasingly familiar with the professors, attorneys, physicians, and executives at the central intellectual inst.i.tution in town.

An example: one of the partners at Obama's law firm, Allison Davis, was a member of a small, elite coterie in Hyde Park--African-American families who had compiled records of achievement over two or three generations. Davis's great-grandfather was an abolitionist lawyer; his grandfather chaired the anti-lynching commission of the N.A.A.C.P.; his father was valedictorian at Williams (though, as a black man, he was not allowed to live in the dorms) and an anthropologist who was the first African-American scholar to be awarded a full, tenured position at the University of Chicago or any major American research university. In 1947, Davis's father brought the family to Hawaii, so that he could study the uniquely integrated school system there. Davis is light-skinned, so much so that he became a kind of anthropologist himself, tuning in to what whites say about blacks when there are, seemingly, no blacks around to overhear them.

Allison Davis was an elder in a new breed. There had long been a moneyed black elite in the city, like the real-estate man Dempsey Travis, who was active in old-line Democratic politics and wrote histories of black politics and jazz in the city. On the South Side, there had been well-to-do black doctors, lawyers, car dealers, and merchants. Now there was a critical ma.s.s of African-Americans who, having gone to the country's best universities, were intent on creating a new elite. Davis hosted many dinner parties and, around the Christmas-New Year holiday, he threw a huge bash; he invited the younger people from the university, from City Hall, from among Cook County pols, from the foundations and the arts. "The Old Guard wasn't there--this was the next generation," Marilyn Katz, a former S.D.S. radical who was running a public-relations business, with clients from City Hall, said. "You would see a range of people from black professionals, the white progressive intelligentsia, the North Side-development scene people like Buzzy Ruttenberg, people from the University of Chicago, the parents at private schools like Parker, St. Ignatius, and the Lab School, in Hyde Park. Eventually, years later, there would be a big overlap of these schools and the finance committee of the Obama campaign in Illinois. Early on, Barack was there, but he wasn't a star yet."

Davis knew everyone, it seemed, and everyone came to his parties: John Rogers, who had grown up in Hyde Park--a street there is named for his mother, Jewel Lafontant, a lawyer and a prominent figure in Republican politics--and founded the investment firm Ariel Capital Management. Jim Reynolds, Jr., of Loop Capital Markets. Robert Blackwell, Jr., of the tech-consultancy firm Electronic Knowledge Interchange. The publisher Hermene Hartman. All of them became Obama's friends. "I tried to include Barack and Mich.e.l.le in everything," Davis said.

Obama also met some Chicago operators of dubious value and intent. When he was still in law school, he got a job offer from the Rezmar Corporation, a developer of low-income housing run by a Syrian immigrant named Antoin (Tony) Rezko. Rezko came to Chicago when he was nineteen, intending to study civil engineering. He made a fortune setting up fast-food franchises--Panda Express Chinese restaurants and Papa John's pizzerias--and even did some business with Muhammad Ali. Rezko could see that one of the swiftest ways to riches in Chicago was through political connections, and he soon began to climb. At Ali's request, he held a fundraiser in 1983 for Harold Was.h.i.+ngton. In 1989, Rezko and his a.s.sociate Daniel Mahru set up Rezmar and, partnering with various community groups, got government loans to develop apartments on the South Side. In 1990, one of Rezko's vice-presidents In 1990, one of Rezko's vice-presidents, David Brint, called Obama at Harvard, after reading about him in the newspaper, and offered him a job--one of many that he turned down. As it happened, Allison Davis was appointed by the mayor to the Chicago Plan Commission and Davis Miner did the legal work for a joint venture between the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation and Rezmar. Obama did not do much real-estate work Obama did not do much real-estate work at Davis Miner; in all he spent just five hours on work for Rezmar. But the contact was made and a friends.h.i.+p was formed. When the time came for Obama to enter politics, Tony Rezko was ready. at Davis Miner; in all he spent just five hours on work for Rezmar. But the contact was made and a friends.h.i.+p was formed. When the time came for Obama to enter politics, Tony Rezko was ready.

If Obama was on the make politically, his new friends and acquaintances thought, he carried it off with a certain elan. "Barack made lots and lots of alliances," Davis said, "but he was so affable and gregarious that I never had the sense that he was mining the invitees for future campaign contributions." Davis felt that, given the proper opening, Obama could make a political career in Chicago. "All the deals have been made in New York, everything has been divided up and dealt out," he said. "If you look at the social page of the New York was on the make politically, his new friends and acquaintances thought, he carried it off with a certain elan. "Barack made lots and lots of alliances," Davis said, "but he was so affable and gregarious that I never had the sense that he was mining the invitees for future campaign contributions." Davis felt that, given the proper opening, Obama could make a political career in Chicago. "All the deals have been made in New York, everything has been divided up and dealt out," he said. "If you look at the social page of the New York Times Times on Sundays, it's stagnant, more European in terms of traditions and entry into positions of influence. Here in Chicago, you don't confront the same barriers." on Sundays, it's stagnant, more European in terms of traditions and entry into positions of influence. Here in Chicago, you don't confront the same barriers."

By far the most important new friend in Barack and Mich.e.l.le Obama's lives was Valerie Jarrett. A graduate of Stanford and Michigan Law School, Jarrett began her professional life working for a corporate law firm. The work was so dull The work was so dull, so detached from her desire to make a social and political impact, that she often just closed the door and stared out the window of her office on the seventy-ninth floor of the Sears Tower, crying, wondering what she was doing with her life.

Jarrett came from perhaps the most talented and prestigious African-American family in the city. Her great-grandfather was Robert Taylor, one of the first accredited African-American architects. One of her grandfathers was Robert Rochon Taylor, the head of the Chicago Housing Authority; ironically, one of Daley's most hideous public housing projects was named for him. Jarrett was born in s.h.i.+raz, in Iran, where her father, James Bowman, a prominent pathologist and geneticist, was running a hospital. Valerie's mother, Barbara, was a specialist in early-childhood education. When the Bowmans returned home to Chicago, Valerie was fluent in Farsi and French, as well as in English.

On Election Day in 1983, she had campaigned door-to-door for Harold Was.h.i.+ngton at a housing project near Cicero. When she wore her "Was.h.i.+ngton" b.u.t.ton to work she took note of the suspicious glances of many of the white lawyers in the firm. After his victory at the polls, Was.h.i.+ngton persuaded many of the black professionals in town to come to work at City Hall. In 1987, Jarrett went to work for Judson Miner in the corporation counsel's office on various redevelopment projects near O'Hare Airport. After Was.h.i.+ngton's death, many of the committed black professionals at City Hall, disenchanted with his successor, Eugene Sawyer, who was so much weaker, so much more pliant to the will of the machine, left, and, if they didn't leave then they left when Daley was elected, in 1989. Jarrett, who came to believe that the younger Daley was not a racist like his father, stayed on, eventually becoming a deputy chief of staff in Daley's office and the Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development. Working for Daley, in the view of some of Jarrett's friends, was a form of selling out, of racial betrayal, but she was soon one of the best-connected people in Chicago.

The Harvard law professor David Wilkins, a native of Hyde Park, spent between 1995 and 1999 working on a research project about blacks in the legal profession. Most of the lawyers in town, he discovered, knew Jarrett. "No one in my generation of black people in Chicago is more respected than Valerie," Wilkins said. "Valerie was the liaison between the white North Sh.o.r.e elites and the black South Side elites. Daley was smart enough to realize that he needed black people supporting him in order to rule. He knew that there had to be another Harold Was.h.i.+ngton out there, and he had to position himself against that threat. In the meantime, Valerie saw the real way that power is wielded. She knew everyone. And after a while she ran the housing authority, the transit authority, and the Chicago stock exchange--all quasi-independent regulatory bodies with a lot of power."

In July, 1991, a colleague of Jarrett's at City Hall, a lawyer named Susan Sher, handed her the resume of an impressive young woman at Sidley Austin: Mich.e.l.le Robinson. Someone had written across the resume that Robinson wanted to leave the firm; she was bored and wanted to "give back."

"They said she was a terrific young woman, disenchanted with the practice of law," Jarrett recalled. "And I thought, I know that type, because that's exactly what I was. I thought that sounds like somebody I would get along with."

"She is made for you," Sher told Jarrett.

Jarrett met with Robinson and, almost immediately, offered her a place in her office. But, before Robinson accepted, she asked Jarrett if she would have dinner with her and her fiance, Barack Obama.

Although Jarrett was older and infinitely more experienced in the public life of Chicago, she was nervous about meeting Obama. She had already heard a lot about him. As the first black president of the Harvard Law Review Harvard Law Review, she said, "he was a really big deal within the African-American legal community."

They met at a restaurant called Cafe Le Loup and immediately fell into a long discussion of their childhood travels. "Barack felt extraordinarily familiar," Jarrett said. "He and I shared a view of where the United States fit in the world, which is often different from the view people have who have not traveled outside the United States as young children." Through her travels, Jarrett felt that she had come to see the United States with a greater objectivity as one country among many, rather than as the center of all wisdom and experience. "We were also both, in a sense, only children," she went on, "because his sister is so much younger than he is, and I am an only child. We were forced to be with adults at a very young age, and, therefore, if not to partic.i.p.ate, be in the room where there were adult conversations going on about world politics. We were both inundated with a lot of diverse information, which gives you a lot of appreciation for diversity of thought and how that shapes you. And I think that's why we clicked."

Jarrett also observed Barack and Mich.e.l.le together. They were not yet married, but it seemed to her that they were already "kindred spirits."

"I was struck then by how you could have people that were raised in such different worlds, yet have the same values," she said. "Mich.e.l.le had a lot of what Barack missed in childhood: two parents, everyone home for dinner, a brother, family unity, a place to call their own. It was a nuclear family grounded in one neighborhood, but with the same values of work, personal responsibility, treating each other the way you want to be treated, and compa.s.sion, and just core decency. That's how they both were raised in the end. Barack's father abandoned him, and that left, I think, a hole in his heart. By finding Mich.e.l.le and her dad and seeing their really close relations.h.i.+p, he thought, This is what I want in my life. Often times, you re-create your childhood. Often people say that children who had al