Fifty-five years ago Joseph Heller gave us the paradox of Catch 22.  It came to mean a set of contradictory ideas and rules that conflicted with themselves. And while Catch 22 remains a cornerstone of American literature, it also just might be a cornerstone of the Obama Presidency.

Barack Obama came to office on a wave of hope and change.  He came to Washington to change it.  Only to realize, that if you want to get stuff done to change Washington, you can’t change it, unless you work within it.  

It is n that paradox. in that Catch 22, through which we can perhaps best understand the past six years of the Obama presidency. 

Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, as captured the essence of this dilemma in his examination of the first six year of the Obama presidency in  The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House.

My conversation with Chuck Todd: