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Obama well liked, but not respected

Part 1 of 2 As Barack Obama departs the White House on Friday after eight years as the American president, the pundits are either dancing on his grave (see Nathan Giede's column below) or weeping tears of nostalgia over the glory days of 2009 and the
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Part 1 of 2

As Barack Obama departs the White House on Friday after eight years as the American president, the pundits are either dancing on his grave (see Nathan Giede's column below) or weeping tears of nostalgia over the glory days of 2009 and the impending national nightmare sure to come under the Donald Trump regime.

Balanced assessments of the Obama presidency seem so old-fashioned.

During their exclusive interview broadcast Sunday night, 60 Minutes struck that traditional pose of grilling the outgoing president about his weak handling of Syria and then depicting him as the doting husband and loving father who enjoyed watching his girls enjoy themselves in the playground set up for them in view of his Oval Office window.

What was obvious by the end of the 60 Minutes segment was what a great guy Obama is but too bad he wasn't a better president.

In her Saturday column in the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente described him as cool and classy but those words apply to the man, not to his administration. It's easy to put together a long list of Obama awesomeness, starting with his laid-back charm, his devastating smile, his superior oratory skill and his sparkling intelligence.

This is a man who knows he forced his daughters to grow up in a bubble and his wife to put her life and career on hold for her husband and for a job as First Lady she never wanted. He owes them big and he doesn't mind saying so.

Obama is the man you'd love to debate politics with over burgers and beers in the backyard on a warm summer afternoon because he'd passionately argue his points and patiently listen to yours.

He is the modern product of an interracial marriage and his roots run through Kansas, Illinois, Hawaii and Indonesia. Yet he is also the product of Harvard Law School, an elite education he earned with his own hard work.

He's a well-rounded, thoughtful gentleman with the common touch, able to inspire both intellectuals and the less-educated with his hopeful words. Even Obama's fiercest critics recognize the man's decency and his patriotism.

Yet none of those qualities helped him be a better president.

Instead, it was his negative personal traits that hampered him. His preference for gradual change over bold action crippled him almost from the day he took office.

In early 2009, mired in the debts of a global financial calamity not seen since The Depression, he could have put the boots to Wall Street bankers and quickly passed tough regulations on the financial sector with support from both parties.

Instead, he gave them a huge bailout in exchange for a promise to be better.

They took him for the sucker he was, handed out rich bonuses to themselves and their senior staff and then refused to even meet with him.

He could have crippled the Republican Party for a generation by building up the Democratic Party at the local, state and national level with slick candidates and sharp operatives, propelled by a relentless progressive agenda on gun control, tax reform, individual rights and foreign policy that energized the country and left the Republicans looking like backward rednecks. He could have exploited the rise of the Tea Party by encouraging their racism and their intolerance, further sidelining the Republicans.

Instead, he left Democrats at the grassroots level to fend for themselves and they were no match for a well-organized, heavily-financed right-wing machine.

Perhaps it was naivet, perhaps it was arrogance, but Obama had far too much confidence in his personal ability to talk common sense into anybody, far too much faith in the sound of his own voice and far too little belief that people could not only hate him but even the very idea of him.

So he treated the bankers, Republican legislators and Tea Party nutjobs with respect they didn't deserve, and in return and had declared open war against him. Instead of bringing the full power of his office to bear, he twiddled his thumbs, ignorant of the fact that fear and anger were the emotions taking hold of the country, not the hope and change he promised.

Under Obama, Guantanamo stayed open, cyber warfare grew exponentially, as did illegal surveillance at home and abroad.

Institutional racism, police brutality and the number of crumbling schools, hospitals and airports have all increased. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, the blue states became bluer, the red states redder, and the elites increasingly told themselves they were smarter and told everyone else they were dumber.

The so-called United States haven't been this fractured since the violent social upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Voters liked Obama so much they elected him twice, but millions of them clearly didn't believe a damn word he ever said.

That would explain Trump, wouldn't it?

More tomorrow.

-- Managing editor Neil Godbout