With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/opinion/with-obama-the-personal-is-presidential.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential
Timothy Egan JULY 15, 2016


Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times


We always knew he could keep his head when others were losing theirs and blaming him, knew it from the 2008 financial crisis and on to the hard, lasting words he spoke at Tuesday’s memorial for the slain police officers in Dallas.

What we didn’t know, what could not be predicted of one so young and new to the impossible task of living round-the-clock under the glare of the entire world, was how Barack Obama would hold up as a father, a husband, a man.

No matter what you think of Obama the executive branch, it’s hard to argue that Obama the human being has been anything less than a model of class and dignity. If, as was often said about black pioneers in sports, you had to be twice as good to succeed, Obama’s personal behavior has set a standard few presidents have ever reached.


snip//

And those who praise Obama as a model father or husband for the black family do him a disservice. He’s a model, without asterisk for race. It’s a hard thing to go nearly eight years as the most powerful man in the world without diminishing the office or alienating your family. He’s done that, and added a dash of style and humor and a pitch-perfect sense for being consoler in chief.

snip//

What’s remarkable is that Obama hasn’t turned Nixonian or hard. He was the only president to have his Americanism challenged, the only president to be heckled with “You lie!” before a joint session of Congress. And the smears keep coming. Barely a week ago, Fox News flashed pictures of a young Obama attending his African half brother’s wedding in Muslim garb — proof, Bill O’Reilly said, of the president’s “deep emotional ties to Islam.”

For Obama, holding it together as a person has only occasionally translated to political triumph. The first African-American president is leaving office at a moment when more than two-thirds of Americans think race relations are bad — a sharp increase from the dawn of his presidency. He acknowledged some of this failure in Dallas.

“Now, I’m not naïve,” he said. “I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been.”

On eleven occasions — Newtown, Tucson, Charleston, Dallas, among the venues of despair — he’s tried to summon words to heal a wound. If the words have sometimes failed him and us, the man, in his personal behavior, has not.

[onecent]

1. Nice post!!!!!!!!!

[Surya Gayatri]

2. A man of surpassing grace and eloquence. His soul is "eloquent" and it speaks

to us through his words and actions every time he appears in front of us.

A truly great human being. I adore and respect him more than any other public figure in my lifetime.

[tman]

3. " attending his African half brother’s wedding in Muslim garb "

Or maybe just African garb.

[canetoad]

4. Good to see

that you're keeping the faith after all these years. Ta for posting this.

You may know that Joe Biden is in my part of the world this weekend. Almost tempted to be a total groupie and drive to the city to get a glimpse of him.....

[babylonsister]

6. omg...

where have you been? I've missed you!

[canetoad]

9. The answer my friend,

Is blowin' in the wind.....

Nah, it's in your mailbox. Missed you too.

[gademocrat7]

5. K&R

Touching photo.

[sheshe2]

7. Hey, bsis...

Thanks for this. A good man.

[babylonsister]

8. Agreed, sheshe2.

I doubt we'll ever see anyone like him again, more's the pity.