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Frank's latest book, Obama on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, is now out in paperback. His previous book was Bush on the Couch.
Obama’s announcement of his support for gay marriage and Romney’s reaction to the revelations that he bullied a gay classmate in prep school offer vivid examples of the differences between how the two candidates think — and, ultimately, govern. People mistrust people who take time to think before they speak, which accounts for some of [...]
One way to avoid reality is to bend it internally, to alter our experience of what we see. Those who regularly protect themselves from anxiety by bending reality become used to self-obfuscation. While clouding one’s perceptions makes it harder to set priorities, the real danger is in downplaying potentially serious matters — like not having [...]
Like the last survivors of a school of sharks looking for prey, the remaining candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination are now turning their attacks from each other towards President Obama. While they may target “Obamacare” or something else, what they are really attacking is Obama’s capacity to tolerate complexity, on which he thrives. Unconsciously, [...]
Barack Obama’s masterful speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) revealed more than his growing comfort with his own power and with the gravitas of leading the most powerful nation on earth. Moving him forcefully into the center stage of world diplomacy without relinquishing his familiar message of bipartisanship, responsibility, and a never-ending quest [...]
President Obama’s used to it, to going silent on us that is. Conventional political wisdom suggests that he just sit back and let the Republicans continue down the path of self-destruction. It’s a scene depicted in a New Yorker front-cover cartoon, in which the President is watching the GOP candidates bloody each other up on-screen. [...]
President Obama made a broad appeal to the American people in his pre-Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer that spoke to both his psychological strengths and limitations. Known for his last-minute, come-from-behind successes, Obama shares an attitude with winner-take-all quarterback Eli Manning. And eager to get his message to as big an audience as possible, [...]
Viewers who tuned in to the latest Republican debate expecting to see the candidates in attack mode certainly got what they were looking for. But their attacks were not directed only at each other or the President they hope to unseat. They were attacking reality itself. When the Republicans attempt to advance their causes by [...]
When President Obama took a stand last week and appointed Richard Cordray to chair the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in defiance of a Congress incapacitated by being in recess, he stirred up more than controversy — he also stirred up parts of his own internal world that had been dominated by an almost pathological need [...]
President Obama’s Thanksgiving day address sounded several familiar themes to which he returns with a regularity that approaches the compulsive: the “sense of mutual responsibility the idea that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper — [that] has always been a part of what makes our country special,” as well as [...]
Last week, President Obama’s appearance on the The Tonight Show With Jay Leno reminded supporters why they were so drawn to our 44th president in the first place. First, he dutifully fit himself into the role as special guest in a self-mocking introductory skit before sitting down at the host’s right hand to ply the [...]
President Obama went out on a rhetorical limb last month when introducing the American Jobs Act, ordering Congress to “Pass this bill,” an uncharacteristically forceful command he repeated 17 times in its introduction and countless times more as he campaigned around the country for its passage. Last week, he doubled down in the wake of [...]
