WHSRWizard

I mentioned it down below, but it would be being party to a very private moment between Vice President Biden and his son.

A close second happened shortly after President Obama was inaugurated. He had not been at the White House much because he was out meeting with people and going to parties and doing the kinds of things you would expect him to do to thank his supporters. He was having dinner one night when the phone rang in the sit room.

I picked it up and it was the director of the CIA. He said he needed to talk to the president immediately. Now there are three people who can say that and get through. The first is the first lady. The second is the National Security advisor. And the third is the director of the CIA.

I told the director to wait a minute while I found the president. He was over in the residence with some friends. I got them on the phone and said that the CIA director needed to talk with him immediately on a secure line.

The President pause for a second and said, " a secure line. Where do I find one of those?"

I told him that there was one in his bedroom and in his private study.

The president paused for another moment and then said," my bedroom? Where is THAT?"

And I found myself in the bizarre place of telling the president of the United States how to get to his bedroom

Two quick stories:

1) When President Obama was elected, we started getting a ton of calls that were...less than complimentary about the fact that we had elected an African-American president. Usually it was just drunk rednecks calling in and yelling racial epithets, but occasionally they would go too far and actually threaten the President or the White House. When that happened, we would conference in the Secret Service, and I'm sure those callers received a nice personal visit from them.

2) One day while I was leaving the White House after my shift, a mentally ill person tried to grab the gun of a uniformed Secret Service officer on the South side. The gun went off in the scuffle. HOLY. CRAP. Within literal seconds, there were dozens of Secret Service on the scene. It was amazing to see.

Both President Bush and President Obama (and Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Obama) were wonderful to the staff. President Bush was a bit more exacting in his standards, which made it a little more stressful because you didn't want to screw up, but it's not like he was unreasonable or anything. President Obama is definitely someone I would want to have a beer with.

Really good question!

In general, I liked all of the people who worked there. In my experience, the more senior level people were the more down-to-earth ones. I mean, by the time you're in the top echelons of the staff, you have nothing left to prove to anyone.

The people who I had some trouble with were the younger people, especially in President Obama's administration. These were "kids" who hadn't really done anything more than have influential parents, and their kid got to pretend to be someone important for 6 months or a year.

In general, the longer someone's title ("Deputy Assistant Counselor for Intergovernmental Affairs and Oversight"), the more obnoxious they were because they were still climbing the ladder.

The only person I truly, truly disliked was Secretary Clinton's Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills. She was one of those, "Do you know who I work for?" types. And she definitely wanted to speak to the manager.

Vice President Biden received a phone call one day from his son Beaux (now deceased), who was stationed in Iraq. I got in touch with the Vice President, and we set up a phone for him in a room. I stayed in the room in case the connection was lost so that I could quickly get it connected again. In that time, it wasn't the Vice President: it was just a father talking with his son. I felt exceptionally privileged to be a part of that moment.

Beyond that, my favorite thing to do was to walk around the building in the middle of the night.