Notes

What is the most powerful weapon the Bosnian Serb extremists have? " Fred asked me and the other interns one day on a visit to Washington. Their siege, he answered, explaining, "If we can find a way to restore water, they can still shoot people, but the city will not surrender We will foil their plans and give the Bosnians the time to muster the means to fight back.”
 Fred's plan was audacious in the extreme. He planned to smuggle water pumps and other large machinery past the Bosnian Serb gunners and then jury-rig a vast water purification plant inside a Sarajevo tunnel, where it would be shielded from Serb fire. If the plan worked, Fred said, 120,000 gallons of water would flow, gving a third of the city residents water around the clock.
The man before me was outwardly the same person I had worked for  with since 2005. But everything about his manner seemed altered what had just happened. He had always been a solitary person, but now, even as he and the future First Lady made their way down the line in a seamless communion. he seemed well and truly alone.
It was as if he had been suddenly encased in a glass box, the only man in the world who would be President of the United States. He alone would make the call on when to go to war, and, more immediately, he alone would be responsible for saving a US economy that was in free fall
After the UN delegation left the Oval. Obama approached me and asked when I was due. "I think Barack would make a great name, " he joked
I was so eager to talk about substantive foreign policy issues with im that I blurted out a few sentences
about what I was working on. As soon as I did, I saw his shoulders stiffen, and he said he had to get to another meeting
Initially stung, I thought about it later and understood his reaction Exeryone on planet Earth wants something from him, He probably just wanted one simple conversation about baby names.
Government, I discovered, was a lot like high school: people tended to dish on their peers behind their backs rather than to their faces
He had a convoy of thirty vehicles wherever he went. He could do almost nothing on a whim. Days or even weeks before he went somewhere, large advance teams would secure his intended destination and even meet with the people greeting him. Everything must have felt rehearsed
Obama had played basketball all his life, but once he became president, he seemed to prefer golf. "Eighteen holes is what Passes for freedom in this job, he once explained to me. For someone pent up by rope lines and armored cars, barricades and security details, an afternoon round under an open sky must have meant much more than golf
I would typically tell Cass that I had landed, yet again, in the lower left-hand quadrant: "not respected, not effective
My focus became intensely bureaucratic. In the distant past, I had felt my blood boil confronting Bosnian Serb militiamen for the crimes they were committing. But now, holed up in a fully secure office with the blinds perpetually drawn, my universe shrank. Exclusion from a meeting was enough to cause me to fume to Cass that I should just pack up and move back to Boston. After meetings, an NSC colleague would send around what was called the Summary of Conclusions(SOC) to all those who attended, memorializing what had been agreed upon. If the SOC omitted, for example, my nonconcurrence on whether we should recognize a flawed election somewhere, I was almost as enrage as if I had personally witnessed a soldier rough up an election monitor.
Since I had not traveled with the President before, I had not yet experienced presidential movement, an epic affair. You go with the flow or you get left outside the fully secure zone that the President inhabits
How are you finding it all? "he asked For a split second I thought, "Don't ruin this nice moment with the man who never gets a break. He is talking to you as a friend, not as the President to be lobbied. But I couldn't help myself, 
i’m really worried about the Armenians, I said
Obama's eyes flashed-first in surprise, and then, seemingly, in anger
I knew I was taking advantage of a chance encounter outside a mens room to try to sway the President on a question that had alread been decided, but it was too late to stop now.
They really counted on us, I continued
You know what, the President said. Im worried about the Armenians too. But I am worried about the living Armenians. Not the ones we can’t bring back. I am living in the present, Samantha, trying to help the Armenians of today
 "Well, you know what? " he said sharply, before walking away, I don't have the luxury of not trying for peace
Never compare your insides to somebody elses outsides.
Rather than fighting to get into meetings where I would be outnumbered, he suggested I priorities issues about which there might be no White House meetings at all.
Holbrooke summed up this advice in one phrase: "Go where they ain’t.. Legions of governmen aides flocked to consequential issues that drew presidential attention. But all around the world, immense suffering was occurring in forgotten places. With even a modest time investment, one could support positive change in ways that would not make the evening news. Lower down in the bureaucracy, one could also find enthusiastic partners brimming with ideas about how to help
 Do good where you can do good. The people in those countries don’t give a damn how high priority what you do is to anybody else. They don't have another hope besides America
 He boosted my spirits, telling me that as long as I fixated on getting things done and "not the bullshit " I would earn a reputation for competence.