EVEN if this had not been the best week in the seven-year Barack Obama presidency, I would still write with emphasis that we are now, have been, and for a considerable time — especially given the epigones running to succeed him — will continue to be in the age of Obama.
It is enough that the grandson of a Kenyan cook in the British Army is at the commanding heights of world power, creating a sea change to what every girl and boy worldwide can aspire. He has enough legislative accomplishments to put a stamp on the first third of the 21st century. No president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his four terms, has done as much.
I admit my bias, having predicted that it would be so in these columns when he announced his presidential bid two years prior to his inauguration. Most of my friends said I was crazy. But I could see how smart he was, and how arrogant his opponent was, and thus the cleanup as she fell into his traps.
Indeed she’s doing it all over again as she tries to make herself over as a caring presidential contender. I sadly underestimated the degree of racism still evident in my country, but I had faith that there were enough smart Americans to elect him, given that he would also have a rock-solid block of the usually nonvoting black community. To have in your back pocket a solid 10 per cent is no small thing.
The president’s week got off to a good start with a victory in Congress, where he marginalised dissenting members of his own party and brought in Republicans seeing the wisdom of fast-track authority in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will do so much to perpetuate the ascendance of the Asia-Pacific region.
The president’s signature accomplishment has been Obamacare, which brings in tens of millions of previously uncovered poorer Americans, who alone in the rich industrial world had no such protection. His opponents from the start tried to gut the bill, but even a Supreme Court victory with the vote of the conservative Chief Justice deciding the case, didn’t stop his opponents, and it took another Supreme Court victory during this past historic week to ensure that the uninsured could not be blocked on a state-by-state basis.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Supreme Court made another historic decision, the majority once again letting its voice be heard through a Ronald Reagan conservative appointee, Anthony Kennedy.
In this case, the third monumental one eliminating basic discrimination against a whole class of American people who wish to live in same-sex unions with the blessings of the state, simply swept aside the arguments of the 17 states — not surprisingly, all in the most backward section of the country, the South — that this has historically been a matter for the states to decide.
The Constitution, Justice Kennedy wrote, transcends such reservations. If anyone needed any evidence of the president’s view, they only needed to see the picture in Facebook of the White House at night in the colours of the rainbow — iconic symbol of that movement. In point of fact, the decision would have gone the other way, but for the appointees made on President Obama’s watch.
But even all this seems trivial compared with what happened a few days ago, when the president went to South Carolina to give the eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was one of the nine gunned down inside the precincts two weeks ago of the most important African-American church in the United States.
The alleged killer, Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old known white supremacist, turns out had Nazi insignia and a lot of other symbols of hate and oppression.
Now “grace” is a Christian concept that remains a mystery to most of us, but in our hearts we know what it means. It is something given freely by God. It was symbolic of grace that the families of the murdered African-Americans appealed for forgiveness for the coldhearted killer.
The Emmanuel Methodist Episcopal Church was too small for the thousands that wanted to attend the funeral, which was, therefore, held in a nearby arena that still could not accommodate 5,000 more.
If I had had doubts (and I have had) about the sincerity of Obama’s religious beliefs, I lost them. Listening to him invoking grace and praying that the horrendous tragedy could bring a broader understanding of the hurt and oppression that most African-Americans still endure to some degree was enough. It was clear after 20 minutes that this man of such steely self-control was losing his grip over his emotions.
Rather than grasp for further words, he simply broke out singing the momentously haunting and powerful hymn, Amazing Grace, written by an 18th century English pastor, soon to be adopted as a black gospel song.
Everyone knew the words, and I doubt that there was a dry eye in the audience. If it was a great moment for Obama, it was a greater moment for all humanity.
The writer is emeritus professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, United States