Europe will miss Barack Obama. But maybe he didn’t care for us
Natalie Nougayrède, 18 Nov 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/18/europe-barack-obama-president

"But before too much nostalgia sets in, here are two large regrets. First, it never felt like Europe really interested you – even if you choose to make it your second-last foreign destination as president. Asia was always your great foreign policy passion – you once called yourself “America’s first Pacific president”."

"Second, you’ve overlooked the effect your Middle East policies would have on Europe. Fighting Islamic State was your number one priority, stopping the massacres carried out by the Assad regime much less so. In the west Europe has felt the brunt of this humanitarian disaster. Refugee movements have upended the continent’s politics. As Merkel said this week, the vast majority of Syrians who reached Germany were fleeing Assad, not Isis."

"We will miss the Obamas when they're gone"

Gerald Caplan, Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Nov. 07, 2016 12:22PM EST

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/we-will-miss-obama-when-hes-gone/article32699120/

"And funny. Sure, there are umpteen very funny black Americans. But who knew the President, a serious thinker with the woes of the world on his shoulders, was one of them? Well, anyone who watched him perform at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinners. He wowed with his impeccable sense of timing, his chuckling at his own wisecracks, his sense of fun, his razor-sharp delivery. It was not just comic genius, it was genius plain and simple.

But there was a worm in that apple too. An enormous worm. Okay, a snake. So exquisitely did the President carve up Donald Trump at last year’s dinner that many believe it was the moment a humiliated Mr. Trump decided to run for president."

"Of course, even now, vast numbers of their fellow Americans will never forgive either of them for being black – will not, in truth, even accept them as full fellow Americans. For them, Donald Trump is their revenge for the past eight years."

Be aware!     Beware!