U.S. President Barack Obama welcomes U.S. Olympic and Paralympics teams at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 29, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Could we pause from the misery of the campaign for a tip of the hat to President Obama? His approval ratings are now higher than at any time since the honeymoon period of his first months.

And not surprisingly. Against the sheer thuggery of Donald Trump and the somewhat blemished history of the Clintons, Barack and Michelle Obama have been models of dignity and probity.

Not the faintest whiff of scandal--no rumors of infidelity, no financial conflicts of interest, serious people, exemplary parents, nothing cheap or tawdry about them.

He is possessed of not just of idealism and intelligence, but a certain grace. That's what a president is supposed to look like.

In case we forgot, the birthers and the haters have not been able to lay a glove on the Obamas because Barack and Michelle give them not a scintilla of ammunition.

And how elegant, how splendid, how affirming for our Republic, that this president is a black man. My black friends would say, well of course, what do you expect? To make it in white America, black people have to be better, often significantly better.

Black parents dread the moment when the time comes to give their kids, especially their sons, "the talk"--about doing nothing to rouse any suspicion from a cop, the importance of excelling and then some, despite the sheer unfairness of having to bend to accommodate white society's persistent racism.

Yes, there are some blacks who got some initial advantage from the rules requiring universities and employers to use affirmative action to overcome present effects of past discrimination. A lot of the tests used to measure supposed aptitude and merit are off the mark in any case.

But Barack Obama is not a case of affirmative action. He's Jackie Robinson--breaking the color line not out of tokenism but because he was unmistakably the best player on the field.

They retired Robinson's number, 42. When Obama retires as President 44, we are going to miss him.

What a crime that this man, who came to national prominence as a young Senate candidate in 2004, calling for America to bridge divides, has been the object of the most negative and vituperative obstructionism and nihilism by Republicans, possibly of any president in our history.

He worked to bridge differences for his entire career, from his days at the Harvard Law Review, as an organizer in Chicago and as a state legislator in Springfield, and hoped that his call to put aside Red states and Blue states in favor of the United States might resonate. But despite his best efforts, we are more divided than ever.



When Obama retires as President 44, we are going to miss him.





At the time of his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, few people outside of Chicago or of Democratic Party politics had even heard of Obama. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of suburban Chicago, a close friend of the Obamas, likes to tell the story of her Obama button, the one she happened to be wearing to a White House meeting with George W. Bush in early 2004 when the unknown Obama was contesting the Illinois Democratic primary.

This was not that long after the events of September 11, 2001 and a worldwide manhunt was on for Osama bin Laden. Schakowsky was a critic of his war, but Bush gaped at her button with incredulity. "It's Obama, Mr. President," Schakowsky grinned.

There is some buzz making the rounds on the Internet that Hillary Clinton should appoint Barack Obama to the next open seat on the Supreme Court. Let the Republicans try to filibuster than one.

I've had my criticisms of President Obama. Early on, he made one grave misjudgment that haunted the rest of his presidency. Instead of making a radical break with the policies and economic officials whose program of financial deregulation crashed the economy, he reappointed them.

That enabled the Tea Party right to appropriate much of the populist anger that should have been directed against the Republicans. But missteps and all, Obama has shown real greatness.

At times, when it looks as if democracy itself is vulnerable to the demagoguery of Donald Trump and the vigilantism he tries to stir up, just having Barack Obama in the White House offers reassurance that democracy will hold.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and professor at Brandeis University's Heller School. In his spare time, he writes musicals. www.drumpfmusical.com His latest book is Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility.

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