“The night Barack Obama was elected president, Christopher Poulos watched the election returns inside a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., where he was the only white inmate in the TV room.
“Poulos had been convicted in 2008 of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and spent an additional two years in federal prison. But by last fall, he had an access badge to the White House. The law student, now 33, recently finished an internship in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“His journey from a federal prison to clearance by the Secret Service to work in the White House illustrates Obama’s particular philosophy that the United States is ‘a nation of second chances.'”