WASHINGTON – A year ago this month, President Barack Obama was delivering a eulogy in Charleston, S.C., after the mass shooting in a church there. As he neared the end, he took a long pause and then began singing “Amazing Grace.”
David IgnatiusIt was an unforgettable, transcendent moment. Michelle Obama had reportedly cautioned him against singing, but Obama told her on the trip to Charleston that he might do it anyway.
Peter Manseau wrote in The Atlantic magazine about the power of the pause: “During those 13 seconds, Obama looks out over the crowd, then down at his notes, then he shakes his head slightly. Watch behind him; the assembled clergy seem momentarily unsure what will happen next.” And then the president’s low, melodious voice hit the first prolonged notes.
Over this past year, as Obama has embraced the final quarter of his presidency, there have been other, similar moments. Our first African-American chief executive has sometimes taken wing – and then, sadly, been brought back to earth by the real-life encumbrances of terrorism, domestic political division and his own limitations as a political leader.
Obama’s presidency has been striking in the clarity of his diagnosis of the nation’s ills and his inability to cure them.