Barack Obama is leaving the White House. As a conservative, I don't think he's been a good president. But I'll readily admit he's been a terrific role model.
As the orange id approaches the threshold of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — God help us all — I find myself reflecting on this more and more. And even if Obama is a master image manipulator, as any successful politician must be, who cares? He projected the right image.
As the author J.D. Vance pointed out, Obama gives hope to those of us, like him, who come from broken homes and strive to build stable, loving ones for their children.
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Michelle and Barack Obama clearly and obviously love each other and are tender towards each other. They find ways to humorously poke fun at each other. They visibly work as partners leading the difficult endeavor that was Obama's political career, presidential campaigns, and mandate as president.
Meanwhile, the Obamas have also been assiduous at protecting their daughters from the public eye and have refrained from using them as props. Famously, President Obama has drawn a red line around family dinner time and respects it. This is a red line he's actually kept, and it rightly puts all of us dads to shame. If the freakin' president of the United States is not too busy to spend dinner with his family, neither are you.
In an era where scripts for fulfilling gender roles get ever more twisted in knots, there are much worse scripts for a heterosexual male to follow than that of Obama, who is faithful, loves books as much as sports, and isn't afraid to shed a tear in public.
Even Obama's much-derided aloof, professorial demeanor is not a bad pointer. While it probably didn't serve him well in politics and (especially) foreign affairs, an anecdotal survey of those around me suggests a lot of families could do with less drama.
In recent years, people have warned about the imperial presidency, by which they mean the ever-expanding powers of the executive branch. But there is another aspect of this phenomenon worth mentioning, which is the increasing expectation that the president not only act as king, but symbol-in-chief and national therapist. This is a trend we should all resist. Still, given that that so many eyes fall on the president, it's worth acknowledging that it's a part of the job that Obama did brilliantly, and one which we may find ourselves very much missing in the coming years.
Thanks, Obama.
