Wygle Wide Web

Obama was not given to shows of emotion. But at the last debate he was asked an innocuous question about his New Year’s resolution, and he launched into standard-issue boilerplate about being “a better father, better husband. And I want to remind myself constantly that this is not about me, ah, what I’m doing today. It’s an enormous strain on the family … a-a-a-nd …” He paused, and for the briefest moment there was a hitch in his voice before he continued, “Y’know, yesterday I went and bought a Christmas tree with my girls, and we had about two hours before I had to fly back to Washington to vote …” Valerie Jarrett, the family friend who had become one of his closest political advisers, thought Obama was going to tear up. She had seen it before, at a book party for “The Audacity of Hope” in 2006, when Obama had started to say he was sorry to have been away from his family so much during his campaign for the Senate, and began crying so hard he couldn’t go on. Obama was remarkably self-contained, but he was also palpably emotionally attached to his family. Jarrett knew that he had not been able to keep his promises to Michelle about getting home to see her and the kids, and that the strain was starting to show.