by Edward Klein
Oprah went through the roof when she heard about Michelle’s remarks. “If Michelle thinks I need more fame and money,” said Oprah, “she’s nuts.”
I asked a White House insider to explain Michelle’s animus toward Oprah. “Michelle is furious that her husband makes late-night calls to Oprah, seeking ideas on how to improve his sinking popularity,” the source told me. “Michelle thinks he should turn to her, not Oprah, for that kind of advice. What’s more, Michelle suspects that at one point Oprah secretly encouraged Hillary to consider a run against Barack in the 2012 Democratic primaries. Barack just laughs at the idea and so does Oprah. But Michelle still believes Oprah has been getting too close to Hillary, whom Michelle calls ‘a snake.’”
Nonetheless, the president pushed Michelle, against her will, to make a sort of peace with Oprah in order to get Oprah’s endorsement in 2012. Left with little choice, Michelle reluctantly agreed to tape an interview for one of the last Oprah TV shows, in May 2011. She sat there through much of the show with her arms folded in a defensive posture across her chest.
Will Oprah support Barack Obama in his second run for the White House? And if so, will she expend the same energy and enthusiasm that she exhibited the first time around?
Those questions could be asked not only of Oprah, but of Obama’s other key supporters and fundraisers from the 2008 election. For many of them, disillusionment has replaced the old fire in their belly. Three and a half years of aloofness, non-communication, and dithering amateurism by the president left his old shock troops in a state of shock.
Obama’s campaign staff has scrambled to repair the damage and convince these important Democrats that the president will be more considerate of their views in the future. Obama Campaign Headquarters in Chicago has dialed up a charm offensive, and Democrats who hadn’t heard from the president for months or even years were showered with sudden invitations to the White House.
Despite all this, rumors persisted that Oprah would sit out the 2012 election. When I asked Gayle King about that, she told me, “Ed, we have every intention of supporting the president for reelection.” But the question still remained whether Oprah would run the risk of further alienating her audience by going beyond a verbal endorsement and actively campaigning for Obama.
Since leaving her syndicated talk show and launching OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, Oprah has been struggling with anemic ratings. She and her backers have lost tens of millions of dollars and have been searching for new investors. By closely associating herself with Barack Obama, she might complicate her efforts to save OWN. In any case, after suffering repeated snubs from Michelle, it seems likely that this time around, Oprah Winfrey would play it safe and put her business interests before politics.
CHAPTER 14
SNUBBING CAROLINE
I mean, Caroline Kennedy—come on!
She’s part of history.
—Michelle Obama
It was toward the end of June 2009, and the weather in Hyannis Port had turned grim and chilling. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was suffering from the final stages of incurable brain cancer, had just returned from an excursion on his beloved sailboat, the Maya. His wife, Victoria Reggie, was waiting for him in a golf cart at the wind-swept dock. Two burly aides lifted Ted out of the boat and placed him gently beside his wife. The couple then drove to a large tent, where almost one hundred members of the Kennedy clan had gathered near the home of Ethel Kennedy for a birthday party for two of her grandchildren.
“It was a rare gathering of the extended family,” the wife of one of Ethel’s sons said in an interview for this book. “That kind of thing only happens now at funerals. The family is very divided and spread out. The Hyannis Port compound thing is fading fast.
“It was a weird occasion,” she continued. “In a way, it was to say farewell to Ted. But in Ted’s eyes, it was to heal a rift in the family, which was divided over its support for the newly elected president, Barack Obama. Ted, of course, had enthusiastically endorsed Obama during the primary campaign and general election, calling Obama a man with extraordinary gifts of leadership and character. And Caroline [Kennedy] said that Obama offered the same sense of hope and inspiration as her father. But there were naysayers present at Hyannis Port, notably Bobby [Robert Kennedy Jr.], who had been all for Hillary and was still a bitter critic of Obama.
“Ted wanted to convince the family to speak with one voice so that they would have more political power in the future. It was the kind of advice his dad, old Joe Kennedy, would have given. It was a huge thing for Ted, something he was willing to spend his last breath on.”
Frail though he was, Ted was eager to take the fight directly to Bobby who, along with his sisters, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Kerry Kennedy, led the family faction that had supported Hillary. There had always been tensions at Kennedy family gatherings—fist fights and overturned tables were not unheard of—and this event was no exception. Bobby told his uncle in no uncertain terms that he deeply resented the outrageous way the Obama people had tried to hang the charge of racism on Bill Clinton. For Bobby, like his father, Robert F. Kennedy, everything was personal; Bobby had two children who suffered from asthma, and he didn’t think Obama took environmental issues like air quality seriously enough. Bobby also argued that Obama had no experience and was going to make a complete botch of things.
As he listened to Ted try to defend Obama, Bobby got hot under the collar and started pointing his finger in his uncle’s face. He kept saying over and over, “If you don’t listen to me, you’re going to regret it.” When Ted tried to explain his position, Bobby interrupted, saying, “Obama talks about clean coal. There’s no such thing as clean coal!” His brothers, Max and Joe, had to intervene and urge him to drop the argument.
During the luncheon, Ted proposed a toast to Obama—not once, but twice. He spoke feelingly, but from a seated position, because he no longer had the strength to stand. Caroline joined her uncle’s toast, even though she had developed some early misgivings about Obama’s team of advisers. During a recent meeting of Obama’s aides at Ted’s home in the Kalorama section of Washington, D.C., Caroline had offered several ideas about education reform to Arne Duncan, Obama’s secretary of education. Duncan listened politely but seemed unimpressed by Caroline’s point of view. She wasn’t used to people ignoring her suggestions, and she was still smarting from the experience.
Nonetheless, Caroline offered a few words of praise for Obama. She spoke about how hard she had worked for his election. She said that Obama was serious about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bobby sat there, fuming. He had always found Caroline too smug for his taste. Her words angered him, and he squeezed his fluted glass so hard that it shattered in his hand, shocking everyone and causing a sudden silence.
Two months later, Ted Kennedy was dead, and for the first time in more than seventy-five years, the clan was without a chieftain. In Ted’s place, power was split among three cousins: Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former congressman who ran Citizens Energy Corp., a non-profit oil company; Robert Kennedy Jr., the environmental activist and syndicated talk-show host; and Caroline Kennedy, the most famous and popular living Kennedy of all.
For the most part, Joe Kennedy remained mum about the Obama administration, leaving it to his brother Bobby to make fiery speeches attacking the president for his environmental policies. That left Caroline, who had showered Obama with all her prestige and celebrity. She was the only Kennedy who had reason to expect something in return from Obama, and she didn’t waste any time asking for a plum appointment.
Since Caroline’s abortive run for the United States Senate from New York, she had lost all interest in elective office. But she wanted to secure a position as an adviser on education to the new administration. With that in mind, she sent the White House a long memo on education funding reform, which was based on her first-hand experience with the New York City Board of Education. She ended the memo by saying that she hoped to meet with the presi
dent to discuss her ideas.
She never got a response. Not even an acknowledgement that he had received the memo.
Then, in the summer of 2011, Caroline asked Maurice Tempelsman, her mother’s longtime companion and a major player in the Democratic Party, to arrange a meeting with the president and his political advisers on Tempelsman’s 70-foot yacht the Relemar, which was docked on Martha’s Vineyard, where the president was vacationing. It was Caroline’s hope that such a meeting would further her late Uncle Teddy’s dream of forming a close bond between the Kennedys and the Obamas.
Once again, the White House spurned Caroline’s overture. The president didn’t even make an effort to see Caroline, whose home on Martha’s Vineyard, Red Gate Farm, was not far from the house the president was renting. A presidential snub had turned into an insult.
The White House meted out similar treatment to Ethel Kennedy, the matriarch of the family. During the presidential primaries and general election, Ethel was so gung-ho for Obama that she stopped talking to her son Bobby, because he was an Obama critic. After Obama won the election, Ethel invited the new president to stop by her house in the Kennedy Compound. Her request was met with stony silence. Ethel was so angry that she went on a rampage inside her house, cursing the president and turning over furniture.
“Our family has spies all over the Obama administration,” said a member of the Kennedy clan. “There are a lot of Kennedy loyalists from Ted’s old office and his connections throughout Washington who are in high positions in the White House agencies. People like Melody Barnes, the director of the Domestic Policy Council; Kenneth Feinberg, the special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund; James Steinberg, a former deputy secretary of state; and Greg Craig, the former White House counsel under Obama.
“Through these and other people, Caroline heard back that there was a lot of nasty shit being said about the Kennedys by the president and Michelle,” the family member continued. “There were catty remarks about how badly the Kennedy women dressed, and how their houses were shabby and threadbare. Caroline got the impression that most of this negativity was coming from Michelle, who didn’t want the Kennedys to be part of the administration for fear that they would have too much influence over the president.
“Gradually, Caroline began to change her tune and side with Bobby and Kathleen [Kennedy Townsend] against the Obamas. Unlike Jackie, who was completely a-political, Caroline is liberal with a capital L. When Obama didn’t raise taxes to balance the budget, Caroline marked him down. In her eyes, he’s a mess because he doesn’t follow the liberal bible on politics. More important, Caroline discovered that the Obamas didn’t give a damn about her or her support. For instance, she was not invited to the state dinners at the White House hosted by the Obamas, or to the president’s forty-ninth birthday celebration in Chicago.
“It really annoyed Caroline when comparisons were made by the media between Michelle and Jackie. Caroline had a word for such comparisons; she called them ‘odious.’ She really got annoyed. And when she began to fall out of love with the Obamas, love was replaced by outright scorn. Now she says things about Obama like, ‘I can’t stand to hear his voice any more. He’s a liar and worse.’”
On Halloween, 2011, Caroline Kennedy received an invitation to attend a reception celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the White House Historical Society. She could hardly have been ignored in this case because it was her mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who had restored many parts of the White House and established the White House Historical Association in 1961.
The reception was closed to the press. Michelle Obama posed for a photo with Caroline, which was released later. But that was it. There was no invitation to the Family Quarters, where Caroline had lived and played as a child. After the photo, Michelle spun on her heels and left.
“Caroline said that shaking hands with Michelle was like shaking hands with a cold fish,” a close family adviser who talked with Caroline after the White House event said. “Caroline had the feeling she wasn’t really wanted there. Michelle gave the distinct impression that she doesn’t like her. Caroline can be pretty standoffish herself, but she was surprised at how cold Michelle was to her.
“The only thing personal about the meeting was when Michelle turned to Caroline and said, ‘The president is going to put the Keystone Pipeline project on hold and wouldn’t Bobby like that?’ In response, Caroline said, ‘Bobby would like to meet with the president about the Keystone Pipeline being not only delayed, but being aggressively attacked and killed.’ Michelle looked stricken. She said, ‘Bobby should call the White House,’ meaning that he would have to go through channels like everybody else.
“Caroline’s attitude about the 2012 election is that, as a loyal Democrat, she has nowhere to go, no one else to possibly support except Obama. What really pisses her off is that the Obamas know that she has nowhere else to go, so they see no point in being nice to her.”
CHAPTER 15
THE JEWISH PROBLEM WITH OBAMA
Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.
—Milton Himmelfarb
Nothing pleased Barack Obama more than the opportunity to leave his carping critics behind and escape overseas, where his reputation as an amateur had not caught up with him. And so last November, after bashing the Republicans for failing to pass an expensive jobs bill that he knew in advance would never collect the necessary votes, the embattled president eagerly bounded up the ramp of Air Force One for the nine-hour flight to Cannes, in the south of France, where he was scheduled to rub shoulders with presidents, prime ministers, and heads of state at the Group of 20 summit meeting.
Three thousand five hundred journalists and a fleet of two hundred motorcycle escorts were on hand to greet Obama. The city center was locked down by twelve thousand security guards and ten thousand metal barriers. Snipers were positioned on top of hotels and all the high points in the city, and divers inspected the port and its boats. Yachts were forbidden to dock off Cannes’ famous Boulevard de la Croisette. The Palais des Festivals, which hosts the annual Cannes Film Festival, was booked to accommodate the visiting dignitaries. Photos of Obama mingling with his fellow summiteers and looking like the Leader of the Free World were transmitted back to the United States, where Obama’s handlers hoped they would man-up his wussy image.
For Obama, the spectacle in Cannes recalled the heady days during the 2008 presidential campaign when he was treated like the Second Coming of the Messiah. As he relaxed among friends in the French resort city, years of care seemed to melt from the lines on his face. By the time he sat down with his host, the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a private conversation before a final press conference, Obama was in such a relaxed and jovial mood that he didn’t notice the open microphone nearby. His subsequent conversation was recorded by reporters in an adjoining room.
“Netanyahu!” said Sarkozy, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. “I can’t stand him. He’s a liar.”
To which an unguarded American president replied: “You’re sick of him? I have to work with him every day.”
The publication of Obama’s impolitic comment, first reported by a French website and confirmed by the Associated Press, provided a window into the president’s true feelings about Bibi Netanyahu and his right-of-center government in Israel. Obama entered office with the professed goal of bringing about an independent Palestinian state before the end of his first term, and he blamed Netanyahu, rather than his own misguided policies and the pitfalls of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, for preventing him from reaching that objective.
Just six months before the Cannes summit, Obama had set off a firestorm in Israel by calling upon the Jewish state to accept its 1967 borders, with agreed upon land swamps, as a basis for resuming negotiations with the Palestinians. Along with most Israelis, Netanyahu was shocked and appalled by Obama’s display of rank amateurism in the art of diplomatic negotiations. Like previous Isr
aeli prime ministers, Netanyahu was prepared to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borders, but he wasn’t so naïve that he would give away that key negotiating point without demanding that the Palestinians first agree to recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel. As a result, Netanyahu rejected Obama’s initiative, handing the American president yet another foreign policy setback, and sinking relations between Washington and Jerusalem to their lowest point since the administration of Jimmy Carter.
This, in turn, had serious domestic consequences for Obama’s relations with one of his key political constituencies—the American Jewish community. “Jewish voters,” wrote Erica Werner of the Associated Press, “though comprising only 2 percent of the electorate nationwide, are an important part of Obama’s base and could make a difference in battleground states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Nevada in a close election. Moreover, the Jewish community is an important source of donations, and Obama campaign supporters want to maintain that support as much as Republicans want to chip away at it.”
In the nearly eighty years since President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, relations between American Jews and the Democratic Party had been as close as lips and teeth. Even as Jews prospered and assimilated into the mainstream of American life, most of them remained loyal to FDR’s liberal vision and refrained from following the pattern of other affluent groups by shifting to the Republican Party. Over the course of the past twenty presidential election cycles, a stunning 75 percent of the Jewish vote has on average gone to the Democratic presidential candidate.
