A Backstage Pass to U.S.-Cuba Diplomacy
A Backstage Pass to U.S.-Cuba Diplomacy
Ben Rhodes' “The World as It Is” sheds new light on the Obama administration’s historic opening to Cuba.
The World as It Is, a meaty new memoir by Barack Obama confidant Ben Rhodes, makes for distressingly painful, occasionally inspiring reading. In Rhodes’ reflective narrative, the ugly partisan warfare of Washington repeatedly reduces talented, tireless, well-intentioned officials to tears. Reputations of good people are carelessly ravaged by hypocritical Republicans, hidden spinners of right-wing conspiracy theories, and a trivializing, jingoistic mainstream media. And we know how the story ends: the election of a vindictive successor, hell bent on undoing whatever good Obama had...
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