Many people thought Obama had done quite confrontational, quite remarkable things somewhere back in his career. Maybe it happened at Harvard, maybe it happened in his time as a community organizer. But when you look closely, these occasions don’t exist.

Strength of character is established by doing something brave and original. You’ll find this idea in places like Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” – you are stronger from habit, from having once seen that you’ve been strong. That has to evolve by taking a stance of open resistance, and maybe once or twice even being alone in opposition and facing the powers that be. Well-meaning politicians like Obama, who haven’t had that particular experience, are, in a sense, unformed and unprepared to serve in positions as leaders.

[Back in 2014], when I wrote an article critical of Obama’s presidency, I received a note from a community worker involved in Chicago politics. He told me about a time when he was working to get a serious gun control measure passed in the Illinois state legislature, sometime in the late-1990s, [when Obama was a state senator]. Obama had pledged his support for the gun control bill, and he said he would come to the committee hearing. And this man wrote that when the day came, they were taking a terrible beating. A ballistics expert they had put on the stand was getting raked over by the Republicans – there was some shouting, and so on. And as this was happening, he saw State Senator Obama walk past the room, stop at the door, look in for a second – and then walk away.

The community worker confronted Obama a few days later. “We were counting on your support,” he said, “and it mattered that you weren’t there. Why didn’t you come?” And Obama said, “Well, I just looked in, and I saw a lot of angry talk and shouting, and I just thought I had a better way to spend my time.”

So that’s it. That’s the path of least resistance. That anecdote sort of crystallizes it.

  

and...

I think one of the most disappointing and really weak utterances of his whole presidency was when, again and again, during the 2012 campaign, he said that we could have all of the above – fracking, fossil fuels, solar and wind – we can have all of them. Well, that’s a terrible cop-out. I think Obama believed it would be reassuring to people. He couldn’t resist saying that reassuring thing.

David Bromwich,

American Breakdown

but in the end it seems he succeeded admirably in what he wanted to accomplish after manufacturing his image as a man of the people and a man of peace. he wanted to become a very rich man and achieve the american dream. and now he can rest on his laurels in his fifteen million dollar mansion on martha's vineyard among the white elite, and dream of his white tower complex in the people's park of his old neighborhood, his launching ground.