When President-elect Trump visited President Obama at the White House the day after the election, Trump made what might have seemed like a startling admission. Barack Obama, Trump said, “is a very good man.”
It was startling in part because Trump had made his name in politics by publicly questioning whether Obama was born in the U.S. and thus eligible to be president.
But it was also a concession to reality. There’s plenty to dislike about Obama. But almost all of it is related to policy and politics. When it comes to the personal — his character and temperament — there is much to admire and much to miss about the 44th president.
Obama possesses basic integrity and a strong character. He is often thoughtful and usually nuanced and precise in his language. He doesn’t seem to do things with the intention of hurting others.
At key moments during his presidency, Obama has shown grace and humanity. He responded with self-restraint, composure and grace when his faith and patriotism were (and continue to be) questioned. He has mostly stayed away from appealing to the public’s lesser angels, to bigotry or fear.
Obama is also by all accounts a loyal and loving husband and fiercely devoted father. Obama’s love and respect for Michelle was evident during his farewell speech on Jan. 10 when he briefly teared up while thanking the first lady for supporting him. How do we know that Obama’s a great dad? Well, a big clue is the fact that we know very little about his daughters. He and Michelle have made an effort to ensure that Malia and Sasha have as much of a normal upbringing as possible.
Obama has been accused of being physically and emotionally aloof, and at times unwilling to engage, especially with members of Congress. But in his defense, Obama has sometimes kept his distance in order to focus on what’s most important. “Sometimes Michelle and I not doing the circuit and going out to dinners with folks is perceived as us being cool,” Obama has said. “It actually really has more to do with us being parents.”
It is on the issue of race that Obama’s character and integrity have shined the most. Many conservatives say Obama has divided the country on race, and it’s true that by some measures the racial divide has widened since Obama took office. Obama deserves some of the blame for not doing enough to fulfill his promise to bridge the racial divide.
But at key moments, such as during the recent spate of police shootings of black men, Obama has acted with restraint and calm, even when accused by some of betraying black people or stoking racial animus.
Whenever Obama talks about race, he preaches not just empathy and understanding but above all encounter. “All of us have work to do” to improve race relations, Obama said during his farewell address. “For too many of us, it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or college campuses or places of worship or our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions.” He urged people to leave their ideological and racial silos and get to know people who are different than them.
Even some conservatives have recognized how well Obama has navigated the fraught politics of race. Shock-jock Glenn Beck has said he was wrong about Obama and race. Beck once accused Obama of having a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Now Beck says, “Obama made me a better man,” in part by making him more thoughtful about race. “There are things unique to the African-American experience that I cannot relate to,” Beck told the New Yorker recently “I had to listen to them.”
For a couple of years after Obama became president, roads signs appeared in several states featuring pictures of a smiling and waving George W. Bush with the words “Miss me yet?” This critique of Obama was funny. It spoke to people’s tendency not to fully appreciate someone until he’s gone, or at least to the tendency to feel some nostalgia for an old leader when things don’t work out quite as they had hoped with the new one.
And so it is with Obama. Millions of people are full of hope for the changes that Trump will bring. But in the areas of character and integrity, at least, many of them may come to miss Obama.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
