Obama: the other face of the former president
During the numerous trips in which Pat Cunnane accompanied Obama in the Air Force One, Cunnane reveals in his book that the 44th president of the United States is an inveterate reader, a fascinating person and a man who became more elegant over time.One of Cunnane's work as an advisor was to include, among the information that came to the president daily, ten letters that reflected what interested the citizens most.
Mission in which 50 employees were seen immersed daily, dozens of interns and hundreds of volunteers who reviewed the letters and emails that were received.Regarding his change of image relates that in the last days of his term, Obama was comfortable in the long flights that demanded their continuous displacements, undoing more buttons on his shirt. But during the first years it was customary for the president to dress in tight sweatpants, a sports sweatshirt and sandals with white socks for night flights.
An old Latin American proverb says that there is no evil that lasts a hundred years or body that resists it. In the same way happens with the mysteries of the White House, at some point, they end up being no longer. Sooner or later, a collaborator with a pact of silence moves on to another task, the president comes to the end of his mandate and the information lived in the first person ceases to be confidential to move to enthuse a public eager to know the innocent and human peculiarities that they hide behind the brilliance of the figure of a distinguished president.
Much has been written about the trajectory of former President Barack Obama, the first black president in a racist, republican and extremely conservative country. However, there is always new material if the protagonist has occupied for eight years one of the buildings from which emanates the power that moves the world.Pat Cunnane, an assistant to Obama's press office, has presented his book West Winging It: An Un-presidential Memoir, a book that shows curiosities from Obama's time as president. Cunnane tells, for example, that the White House was informally rechristened among staff such as Hollywood East, in reference to the many famous people who visited her since Obama's marriage came into her.
According to Cunnane, you never knew who you could find on your way or who could be waiting outside when you left the bathroom, referring to the high-ranking guests who passed through the White House. Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates or Michael Jordan are just some of the well-known faces who were there to spend time with Barack Obama, whom his former adviser described as great and decorated with the appointment of the president more cool.Other of the known inhabitants of the 'First House' American, those who moved with total freedom by the enclosure were the two dogs of the presidential family, Sunny and Bo.
However, the canine routines were not the most attractive of the House and the president. One of the presidential hobbies that was quickly known was his hobby, bordering on obsession, for golf, for which on more than one occasion the staff of the White House was forced to distract press photographers to prevent President's escapades to practice this sport gave the feeling that he spent the field day in the field.It is a well-known fact and so Cunnane affirms in the book that a group of bored journalists could find in a bad blow analogies with a failed policy and in an accurate one too many hours dedicated to their practice.
According to Pat Cunnane, during the five years that he worked for him, he affirms that he was able to meet Obama in his facets of funny man, family member, voracious reader, person interested in science and study, good speaker, thinker. A man who sometimes tried to bypass the strict rules of protocol and found the reality of his situation.In 2014, for example, the president went off the route approved by the Secret Service and decided to have a coffee at a Dunkin Donuts store. Those responsible for their safety panicked.
However, the only thing that poor 'Bear' had done was to make a big fuss at the Pennsylvania Avenue location where people were milling around him while he politely asked for a little space while holding in his hands a Cup of coffee.But everything was not good face. Obama could also get angry, as he did the day he walked into the press room and ask everyone there what the hell was going on. His anger was due to the continuous debate that existed over his proposal to increase taxes to those who earned more than a million dollars a year, while the proposal of the Republicans was precisely cut them.On another occasion, and Cunnane remembers it, it was when the Washington Post titled an information of its section of Style "The butt of Michelle Obama, again object of public controversy", making reference to the declarations of a trainer of an institute of Alabama that had been recorded alluding to that big butt of the then first lady. Attitude that the then president described as "totally disrespectful".