Barack and Joe: The Making of an Extraordinary Partnership

by Steven Levingston, Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)

Overview

A Washington Post 2019 Notable Selection

A vivid and inspiring account of the "bromance" between Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The extraordinary partnership of Barack Obama and Joe Biden is unique in American history. The two men, their characters and styles sharply contrasting, formed a dynamic working relationship that evolved into a profound friendship. Their affinity was not predestined. Obama and Biden began wary of each other: Obama an impatient freshman disdainful of the Senate's plodding ways; Biden a veteran of the chamber and proud of its traditions.

Gradually they came to respect each other's values and strengths and rode into the White House together in 2008. Side-by-side through two tension-filled terms, they shared the day-to-day joys and struggles of leading the most powerful nation on earth. They accommodated each other's quirks: Biden's famous miscues kept coming, and Obama overlooked them knowing they were insignificant except as media fodder. With his expertise in foreign affairs and legislative matters, Biden took on an unprecedented role as chief adviser to Obama, reshaping the vice presidency. Together Obama and Biden guided Americans through a range of historic moments: a devastating economic crisis, racial confrontations, war in Afghanistan, and the dawn of same-sex marriage nationwide. They supported each other through highs and lows: Obama provided a welcome shoulder during the illness and death of Biden's son Beau.

As many Americans turn a nostalgic eye toward the Obama presidency, Barack and Joe offers a new look at this administration, its absence of scandal, dedication to truth, and respect for the media. This is the first book to tell the full story of this historic relationship and its substantial impact on the Obama presidency and its legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316487887
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	10/08/2019
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	33 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Steven Levingston is the author of Little Demon in the City of Light, Kennedy and King, which was named a New York Times Editor's Choice selection and a Washington Post Notable Book of 2017, and Barack and Joe. The non-fiction book editor of the Washington Post, he has lived and worked in Beijing, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, and Washington and reported and edited for the Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson: Renegade and Celtic ix

Introduction: "Don't you miss these guys?" 1

1 "Man, That Guy Can Just Talk and Talk" 9

2 Competitors 25

3 "A Click Moment" 47

4 Subtle Similarities 59

5 Pat Boy and the Stutterer 75

6 Batman and Robin 91

7 Cheney's Dark Shadow 109

8 "Oval Newlywed Game" 126

9 Flu Mania 145

10 The Audacity of Hops 159

11 Brothers in Arms 185

12 "How Can This Have Happened?" 209

13 "As Good as Friends Get" 229

14 Joe, Searching for Words 253

Epilogue: Presidents, Politics, and Friends 271

Acknowledgments 281

A Note on Sources 283

Notes 285

Bibliography 323

Index 329

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2019

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were a match made in heaven, according to this starry-eyed study of bromantic leadership. Washington Post books editor Levingston (Kennedy and King) styles them as an odd couple who overcame a rocky courtship to become essential helpmeets, with the gregarious, glad-handing Biden “loosen up” the reserved, calculating Obama while “Obama showed Biden the path to discipline.” Their relationship, he gushes, left Americans “mesmerized, our eyes locked on these two glowing figures as if we were in the presence of beauty.” (As evidence, he cites a woman who said, “I want a man who looks at me like Biden looks at Obama.”) Alas, Levingston’s rhapsodies on the Obama-Biden bond—“crying, laughing, whispering, walking arm-in-arm, eating ice cream”—don’t reveal much of political substance in it. He notes that Obama appreciated (but rejected) Biden’s advice on Afghanistan and cared deeply about Biden’s son Beau’s battle with cancer, but was persistently exasperated with Biden’s verbosity and gaffes and considered dropping him from the 2012 ticket. Biden in turn appears flagrantly unpresidential here, a reckless windbag with few accomplishments and “an emotional mess” when Obama surprised him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Levingston’s overripe exercise in Obama nostalgia feels unconvincing. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Barack and Joe


"Levingston, a gifted diviner of our political ethos and an eloquent chronicler of our national tendencies, delves purposefully into the relationship between Obama and Biden, showing how it was the magical melding of two forceful personalities who were quite dissimilar in many ways, but no less capable of turning their differences into national benefit.... This buddy film come-to-life is a magnificent story told with poetic verve by a writer who sets his study up like a thriller and crafts it with the pace and surprise of a first-rate novel."—Michael Eric Dyson, from the Foreword

"Barack and Joe brilliantly recounts the remarkable friendship of two very different American leaders. The Obama-Biden axis remains the most potent force in Democratic politics. As the 2020 election nears, this remarkable and timely book will be a must-read for informed voters of every persuasion. Highly recommended!"—Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race

"Steven Levingston's brisk, lucid, and essential portrait of the relationship between Barack Obama and his Vice President tells us much that we did not know before- and at a moment when understanding that relationship will be crucial to deciding who should be the next President."
—Michael Beschloss

"There may then be no better time for the first in-depth exploration of [the Obama-Biden] relationship, offered by Steven Levingston in the simply and appropriately titled Barack and Joe.'"—The Washington Post

"Particularly now, with Biden's status as a front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination challenged, a tinge of nostalgia informs Levingston's deeply insightful, highly readable narrative."
—The National Book Review

"Levingston weaves a lively narrative about an unlikely alliance between the taciturn Obama and gregarious, voluble Biden. . . . As Levingston recounts their relationship during the campaign's high and low points and throughout eight years of facing economic, social, and military crises, he points out many occasions when the two men seemed close. In particular, Obama's demonstrative sympathy for Biden when his son Beau died of brain cancer is compelling evidence of the sincerity of his friendship and love."—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Kennedy and King


"By reminding us of these great leaders and their accomplishments, this book will fuel your passion for the new work we still need to do in our society today."—Congressman John Lewis

"Comparing and contrasting disparate historical figures can easily be artificial, misleading, even gimmicky. Steven Levingston, however, has walked this tightrope magnificently... As is always the case with major contributions to our understanding, Levingston's is grounded in diligent research and detail."—Washington Post

"Insightful and well-crafted.... At a time when cynicism about our political system abounds, [Kennedy and King] reminds us that outsiders can prod those in power toward progress and reform."—Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

2019-07-15
The chronicle of a political "bromance."

Journalist Levingston (Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights, 2017, etc.), nonfiction book editor of the Washington Post, examines the partnership between Barack Obama and Joe Biden, which, the author gushes, "evolved into a friendship of profound depth, one never before witnessed in the history of the American presidency." His admiration for this relationship serves to justify this book. Unfortunately for Levingston, neither Obama nor Biden consented to interviews or replied to emails, although he did manage to interview sources such as Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken. From those responses, along with videos, blogs, twitter posts, various media reports, speeches, and the protagonists' memoirs—all public documents—Levingston weaves a lively narrative about an unlikely alliance between the taciturn Obama and gregarious, voluble Biden. After an initially cool assessment of one another, growing mutual respect led Obama to choose Biden for vice president due to his experience and skill working with Congress, his popularity among working-class voters, and their agreement "on matters of international import." Obama, Levingston maintains, admired Biden's personal story: "his character in the face of profound setbacks," his willingness to question "the meaning of life and his place in it," and his "devotion to his family," traits that Obama felt he shared. The author stretches to include any commonalities he can identify—for example, that both men used sports metaphors. Nevertheless, as Levingston recounts their relationship during the campaign's high and low points and throughout eight years of facing economic, social, and military crises, he points out many occasions when the two men seemed close. In particular, Obama's demonstrative sympathy for Biden when his son Beau died of brain cancer is compelling evidence of the sincerity of his friendship and love. But the author is at a loss to explain Obama's reticence in supporting Biden's current campaign for the presidency, and he ends simply by proclaiming the bromance mesmerizing and inspiring.

A nostalgic portrait of the last presidency.

Kirkus Reviews