Customer Reviews

Inside Obama's Brain

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The book attempts to explain influences on Barack Obama's thinking with anecdotes. A journalist, he interviews many persons acquainted with Obama to derive insights, but his remark that Obama was "confined by his many heritages" misses the essential role of multicultural Hawai`i in liberating him from stereotypic thinking of the kind that the author displays. Abramsky assumes that Obama's experience as a community organizer in Chicago is central to his demeanor and outlook, completely missing the fact that even Illinois friends and political mentors see him as primarily influenced by Hawai`i.

This book easily should have been a "five star" entry. Its goal of providing a psychological profile of Obama writ large was an admirable one, which, with but one glaring exception, was executed flawlessly. Even with the glaring omission (that I will point out subsequently), the book is thoughtfully researched, cleanly executed, and very well-written indeed. Moreover, unlike others of this genre, it is not just a rehash of Obama's own two earlier books. It does indeed dig beneath the surface of the enigma that is Barack Hussein Obama, and on more than one occasion challenges some of Obama's own contentions offered up in "Dreams from My Father." My only disappointment is that the book missed an important basis for understanding Obama's young life by hewing too closely to the culturally sanctioned and approved rules of analyzing the issues of race and sex.

That is the good news. The bad news is that by attempting to finesse the only two issues that really mattered in the subtext of the life of a confused young biracial man trying to find his way in a racist culture: the issues of race and sex, Ms. Abramsky has done immeasurable harm to an otherwise stellar production. It is safe to say that, in addition to religion, race and sex are the only issues that are really pivotal to defining a young man's identity. And if the truth were told, religion, stripped down to to its bare essence, is really also only about race and sex. I tried to find ways to excuse the author for this glaring omission. But each time I was prepared to do so, she herself brought forth new evidence of her own guilty self-awareness of these issues.

The first such instance was her very perceptive comment that Obama's writings have been especially cool to the point of being almost indifferent towards his white mother. This incidentally is a fact that most of us also did not miss.(See for instance my Amazon review of Obama's first book: "Dreams from my father."). Even though Obama does eventually and begrudgingly give his mom at least minimal although backhanded (if only obligatory) credit for playing the dominant role in shaping his early life, the coolness with which he did so (itself and on its own terms) begs for, and requires serious psychological analysis. It is not the kind of thing that a serious analysis (as this book claims to be and set out as its main goal) can casually overlook or dismiss. Yet, this author did so.

The other instance is the age at which Obama was hauled back to the mainland from Indonesia and the subsequent frequent attempts after returning by his white grandfather to impose a connection on him with a local black man. The third one is when the author draws the erroneous conclusion that since Hawaii is a polyglot, this somehow by definition implies that it is either racially tolerant or is completely free of racism? In fact neither is true. Did the author not read Obama's first book carefully enough and understand why the white, Japanese or Native Hawaiian girls would not date him when he was in school there? And has she not been to the Island herself to see first hand (as I have) that the racist tension there is more than just palpable? If one is black there, Hawaii feels more like Alabama, Chicago or Boston, than Paris, Stockholm, or even London.

Surely Barry (since he was living it on several different levels and on at least two continents, and was a precocuously perceptive kid) was already a few steps ahead of "Team Dunham," and thus completely "over" understood what these jointly decided family machinations were really all about: His mom, in a quiet existential conspiracy with her parents, was trying to "run interference for" Barry (as best she knew how under the circumstances) so as to make the complex road ahead -- of adjusting to the twin whammy of cultural racism and its accompanying race-based sexual restrictions (mostly serverly targeted at young black men) that American society was poised to impose on him -- a bit more tolerable.

This was the Gordian knot that Obama's identity was to have unravelled. So Obama's problem was not (as the author assumed and Obama himself claimed) one of trying to find a "workable identity" for himself. The "one drop rule" had already prejudged the issue and predetermined Obama's (and all biracial people like him) identities: He and they all were by definition culturally defined as African Americans. End of choice; end of story, period. The author knew this just as we all know it? But in her analysis she glided pass these most important (and pregnant) of facts and pretended not to know them? For analysis of a "run-of-the-mill" American, this kind of glibness may be okay, but for a just elected 44th President of the U.S., C'mon now? How intellectually sloppy can one get?

The "catch" however is that what "Team Dunham" was really preparing Obama for was the shock of the impact of the racist "one-drop rule," which, in an unholy cultural fait accompli above his head, Obama's identity had already been decided for him, and for the rest of his life. Because of America's racist culture, Obama's white genes would no longer have any role to play in the matter of deciding the fate of his identity. American society had cast him down into the same racial sewer of purgatory that everyone else in American society lives in, and thus had forever robbed him of the right to define himself based on his righteous heritage of being bi-racial, or as Dr. Martin Luther King put it: based solely on the content of his character." And I might add, based on his clear superior intellect.

Put even more simply, since "bi-racial" in the U.S. by definition of the barbaric and profoundly racist "one-drop-rule," means black, Obama's identity fate was sealed before he had a chance to decide it on his own terms. The rest was "identity window-dressing." Obama thus, had on choice in the matter but to try and make a virtue out of a cultural necessity: Obama joined the black community because in the U.S. he had no other option (It was in fact his first, last and only option: Who are we kidding here?)

And thus the actions of the white side of his family -- especially as Obama perceived those of his mom, whom he had learned to trust instictively -- must have felt like a colossal betrayal -- one that he obviously had not gotten over by the time of his mom's death. It is significant that he did not attend his mom's funereal even though he did attend those of his white grandparents.

Thus, as quiet as this book has kept it (by ignoring it altogether), the truth is that Barry did not have a choice in the question of his identity. In the background of America's racist society, the die had already been cast for him. And his white mother and grandparents knew this all along. However, by passively accepting this cultural fait accompli, they either lacked the courage or the language to explain this to our 44th President directly and honestly. Their betrayal was to tell Obama this through insinuation rather than directly. In short, the most they could do was to gently feed him to the wolves of America's barbaric and cruel racist rules, allowing him to sink or swim on his own. So far, Obama has not negotiated this terrain too honestly or too well.

In short, Obama was "turned out" by his mom, and he never forgave her for it. This much is clear and this is a perfectly understandable Freudian conclusion to draw from Obama's background; one that completely explains the coolness towards Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham, his mom. This author pretended she did not know all this? Shame on her. Four Stars
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Inside Obama's Brain is a decent, if sympathetic, overview of the political/social career of the 44th president. I would have liked to have read a few more interviews with his political opponents. But, overall, the book does show some negative aspects of Obama's personality and career. Obama looks like a opportunist in more than a few instances; Abramsky discusses his cynical embrace of the Daley machine, the vote for a symbolic border fence he didn't really support, and his abandonment of campaign finance reform during the 2008 election. I classify the book in the category of not quite good enough to buy, but worth checking out at the library.

Sasha Abramsky likes Barack Obama... make that he REALLY likes Barack Obama. He calls Obama "a once-in-a generation political leader." This book is mostly a listing of Obama's good qualities, based on the author's interviews with people who knew Obama and Obama's books and speeches. Let me be clear that I also like Barack Obama, and while I think the author got the big picture right (yes Obama is smart, charismatic and works hard at listening and bringing people together), he is not infallible. He's had an extraordinarily huge helping of problems and crises to deal with early in his Presidency, and he's taken on more issues at once than most Presidents have done. It would be great if he were our Moses, leading us out of the wilderness of terrorist threats, broken health care, and financial disaster, but can anyone actually live up to such an expectation?

Obama does possess the qualities we need in a leader, and, as the author points out, his experience as a community organizer (despite ignorant sneers from the likes of Sarah Palen) has equipped him to listen to the peoples' needs and to work with all the stakeholders involved to seek solutions to our many problems. The trouble is, on the health care issue, the Republicans had no interest in solving the nation's health care problems, only in "breaking Obama." Obama also cozied up to the health insurance industry, hoping they would not mount an attack against reform. But being who they are, when time came to actually pass something, the insurance industry, of course, attacked. So much for bringing everyone together.

But that brings me to what impresses me most about Obama. He doesn't fade, he doesn't crash, he doesn't flinch when things are going badly. When everyone was declaring heath reform dead, Obama convened a public meeting of politicians and those involved to discuss health care options. He let Nancy Pelosi know he was not giving up and neither should she; Pelosi shifted gears and rounded up the votes needed to pass a reform bill. However, what we got left the ignorant right-wingers angry and the utopian left-wingers dissastisfied.

Obama's handling of the financial crisis is hard to guage, since most of us don't understand much about our financial system. But if you believe the experts, the consensus seems to be that Obama's tactics have worked and the economy is beginning a slow movement upward. Of course, that doesn't bring any joy to the millions of Americans still looking for work or losing their home to foreclosure. Even with all the angst over health care and financial meltdown, the really big test of Obama's mettle as President may be the Gulf oil spill. It's not a crisis that can be fixed by Presidential fiat, but the consequences of this horrific event for many thousands of ordinary Americans will be profound. How can the federal government help? Maybe not that much, but the people expect this President to do something.

This book is a pretty good analysis of Obama's character and his way of dealing with issues, but it is hardly an objective look at his Presidency. The author did not get an interview with Obama, and the book was written too early in Obama's Presidency to make any judgements on how he'll be remembered. If you want to know more about how Obama thinks, you might like the book, but it doesn't break any new ground.

I admit that I not only voted for Obama, but the day after he won the election I found myself standing in my kitchen shedding tears, as I thought back to when I was in my 20s, attending college and going to all those Civil Rights rallies, remembering the Freedom Riders, the integration of Little Rock High, the murder of Martin Luther King... and I thought about how many times I'd joined hands with my fellow students and sang "We Shall Overcome" -- and now we had done it! We had overcome. I was so moved by this seismic change in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave that I cried all the way to work that day and had to pull myself together so I could do my job like it was just another day. But of course it wasn't.

However important his election may have been, he needs to prove himself as our President. I am now retired from full time work and will reach Medicare age in just a few months. The President of the United States is an African American man still in his 40s, and his election is something I am amazed to have seen in my lifetime. My 91-year old mother, for whom this turn of events is even more incredible, said to me recently, speaking of Obama: "I look at him and think: Is he really our President?" Well, yes he is. I can only hope I'll live long enough to see how he does the job and how he'll be remembered. Will it be only for being the first African-American President, or will it be for being one of our most outstanding Presidents? Time will tell.

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 interesting moments in Obama's life and career.

Obama is a careful and cautious man, who doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve. We never quite get the "peeling back of the veneer"(10) Abramsky promises us, but he offers a much more enlightened picture of Obama than all of the "insider" accounts of the 2008 election ever have. Abramsky effectively shows the role University of Chicago, Hyde Park, and Chicago played in shaping Obama's approach to policy and politics.

For Obama fans, Inside Obama's Brain is a heartwarming story of idealism punctuated with anecdotes that will make you smile. And for the disillusioned cynics, it's a reminder of the vast potential Obama has, and may yet realize, if the progressive movement helps him.

John K. Wilson is the author of President Barack Obama: A More Perfect Union (Paradigm Publishers, 2009).

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.

the term "community organizer" came from and what it actually means.

hint: invented by saul alinsky, communist who dedicated his popular book "Rules for Radicals" to lucifer, as in satan, the first revolutionary.

there is a difference between ignorance and willful ignorance. a lot of people have no idea of who obama is in spite of the fact that the media was not able to completely hide his political background and true political views even before the election.

if you don't understand that our president is a dedicated communist who is trying to bankrupt us and install a "soft" tyranny on the way to a full marxist totalitarian state, then you never need to ask how even well educated people in countries like russia, eastern europe, china, southeast asia, burma, cuba, venezuela, ethiopia, zimbabwe, etc. could have believed the lies told by their marxist activists.

everyone else, read the "Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression" by stephen courtois, et al.

thank god that so many americans see what is happening in spite of the poor quality and hard left propaganda of our schools.

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

I hear he speaks fluent Austrian, too.

No wonder people from Los Angeles and Hollywood are impressed by him.

They don't know any better.

I have not read the book nor do I plan to. I would much rather read an explanation on how anyone over the age of 12 could take such an individual seriously. His speeches reveal delusions of grandeur, his foreign policy statements are naive and his circle of acquaintances reveal a moral compass, if it exists points in the wrong direction. To sum up crazy, stupid and evil. But beloved by so many. I guess there is something about government by trite left-wing cliche that gets some people all mushy inside.

Rather than buy the book seek professional help.