Obama’s Burden

In a recent interview with Terry Gross, Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker’s legal writer, said Barack Obama had “transformed” the federal courts. “They are very different in one way,” he noted. “Diversity.” Ideologically, however, “President Obama has been rather cautious” – particularly in contrast to the Republicans’ aggressive nominations of conservative judges – but his appointments of women, gays and minorities have been unprecedented.

This tells much about Obama – about why he was such an inspiring candidate and why he has been, in some ways, a disappointing president. We elected him for who he was, rather than for what he was going to do, which we really didn’t know. He represented the America we hoped to become – black and white at ease in one body, articulate and compassionate. His Philadelphia speech on race in the summer of 2008 was one of the finest I have ever heard. His candidacy appealed, in Lincoln’s phrase, “to the better angels of our nature.”

But while Obama’s persona was unthreatening to many – which is the only way our first black president could be elected – it was, in itself, threatening to others. And when he actually had to govern, he opened himself to partisan attack (and, as Senator Schumer recently demonstrated, to second-guessing).

His policies have been cautious – the idea that Obama is a “socialist” is laughable, his portrayal as a dictator absurd – but his commitment to diversity has been unwavering, which ultimately, I believe, will be his greatest legacy.