The art of getting to know Trump

In the fall of 2006 right after then Sen. Barack Obama announced to Tim Russert on Meet the Press he was seriously considering a run for the nomination of the Democratic Party for president, thousands of reporters, journalists, bloggers and intellectuals flooded book stores for copies of his two books, "Dreams of my Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

For two years they intellectualized about his life story and world view, picked apart every carefully crafted sentence, and marveled at their ability to really get inside the head of this exotic man who might become president.

They wrote breathlessly of the stories he has recounted in his books and "how much it told them about him."

They praised his political ascent — "an impression of ease, if not exactly effortlessness, that obscures a more complex amalgam of drive, ambition, timing and the ability to recognize an opportunity and to do what it takes to seize it," wrote the New York Times.

Obama's books defined his public image in a large part because the political class gushed and plowed their way through his words for insights into the candidate; who was he? Was there evidence in his words that pointed to the central promise of his campaign? Could he of all people reconcile a divided country?