I don’t know about saintly, he certainly has made mistakes both as a leader and as a man.
Here’s the TL:DR version. He has developed excellent leadership skills.
Having said that, I can think of a few reasons:
- He takes the long view before making a decision whether it evolves the job and his personal life.
- Although he does not act rashly, he also has the courage to take bold risks.
- He listens to his advisors and not just the ones who fill his ears and eyes with flattery and what they think he wants to hear.
- He is careful about who those advisors are.
- He delegates well.
- when he takes a bold chance, such as the successful attack on Bin Laden’s lair in Pakistan, he is careful to stack the odds in his favor.
- He takes responsibility.
- He is resilient.
- He is competitive.
If he has a gross failing, it comes in his failure to build an organization that could take over from him. him. But this may also be the result of the nature of the Democratic Party. He must feel the same way Depression era humorist Will Rogers joked when a reporter asked about his political affiliation, “I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat.”
I went to law school with President Obama (and played basketball against him!). And a friend of mine worked with and knows Michelle Obama pretty well.
I did not vote for President Obama the first time he ran for president. I did vote for him the second time.
I hate to say this. But, in law school, he was a good guy. I’m told that he remains a good guy. I have never heard any dirt on him, and I know some folks who know him pretty well. From everything I’ve heard, he’s just a nice, extremely decent man. Which kinda sucks.
President Obama is an extremely competitive basketball player. But, apparently, he can get a bit whiny if he’s getting beat. I wouldn’t know. We never had a lead on his team.
He played on the BLSA (Black Law Students Association) team. My team had a lot more diversity — in everything except basketball skill — we all stunk! We had a blind fellow from Egypt who loved the outside shot!
Even worse, I’m told that Mrs. Obama is even nicer/better than President Obama. My friend served on a diversity committee with her at a law firm. And he tells me that’s she’s a down-to-earth, remarkable friendly, and nice woman.
In fact, I’m told that she helps keep President Obama in-line!
Starting with his personal life: first, the bar has moved as regards drug use. So Bill Clinton’s marijuana smoking was a scandal and Barack Obama’s simply wasn’t. The conservative media didn’t even try on that issue. Second, he is obviously crazy about his wife.
There aren’t any sex scandals because he behaves himself. It’s not really all that difficult. Few American presidents have been womanizers, it’s just that the two big examples, JFK and Bill Clinton, have been recent so we remember them. I don’t doubt that Obama has had plenty of opportunities, but he says no.
Regarding his choices for office: it’s clear that he places a very high value on integrity. And of course the Republicans went over every one of his nominations with a fine-toothed comb looking for anything they could use against them. So by the time the people he chose got into office, you could pretty well count on them being straight arrows.
Obama isn’t saintly, he just has high standards for himself and everyone around him, and the Republicans enforced them too.
