It had become one of President Obama's signature routines in the White House, a habit he mentioned in dozens of meetings and hundreds of speeches: Every night just before bed, he read 10 letters pulled from the 20,000 that Americans sent to him each day. The notes reminded him of why he wanted to be president, he liked to say. He said his nightly reading in the White House sometimes made him pine for his days as a community organizer back in the 1980s, when he was making $10,000 a year and working on the South Side of Chicago. He had just graduated from college, and spent his days driving around to the city's housing projects to speak with residents about their lives. He became familiar with many of the same issues that would flood his mail 25 years later: housing calamities, chronic unemployment and struggling schools.
Individual stories, things you can help with, one at a time.
Now he was the most powerful politician of all -- but fixing problems seemed more difficult and satisfaction more elusive. He had yet to make progress on key campaign promises to reform education and immigration.
A naive socialist dreamer, co-opted by Harry and Nancy?
Meanwhile, the letters kept coming. The president said he wondered whether a community organizer might have an easier time responding to them.
So... pass them off to a Cabinet Secretary!
"The people were right there in front of me, and I could say, 'Let's go to the alderman's office,' or, 'Let me be an advocate in some fashion,' " he told me. "And here, just because of the nature of the office and the scope of the issues, you are removed in ways that are frustrating.
[shakes head] In America, some people get to be anything they want. This guy got promoted well over his level of incompetence.