In next month’s issue of the magazine, President Obama talks with Vanity Fair‘s Michael Lewis about his occupation in the White House. “There is such an element of randomness in who gets this job,” he says. “What am I here for? Why am I walking around the Lincoln Bedroom? That doesn’t last long. A week into it you’re on the job.”

Obama also talks about the news media’s coverage of his presidency. “There is a character people see out there called Barack Obama. That’s not you,” he says. “Whether it is good or bad, it is not you. I learned that on the campaign. You have to filter stuff, but you can’t filter it so much you live in this fantasy land.”

The New York Times recently wrote on Obama’s highly competitive nature. There’s another look at that in VF‘s profile:

When you’re on the president’s basketball team, Lewis learns, and you take a stupid shot, the president of the United States screams at you. When Lewis gets benched, he notices that no one goes easy on No. 44 (Obama’s number in the line of U.S. presidents, also emblazoned on his high-tops). “If you take it easy on him, you’re not invited back,” explains one of the players for the other team, a former Florida State point guard.

[Vanity Fair]