Seems like Obama was put on a spot more than other presidents. He could say the right things, act the right way[1]; yet if at any point something negative came (drones, nsa) he would be bashed generously. People expect A+ from him and scream at an A-. The sad part is that Trump is said to have been elected because he was felt like a true person; I understand their sentiment, his mouth seems unfiltered, so he's a true nasty person but people still prefer that to someone that looks like 90% good samaritan.

[1] you can find lots of videos where he would adress antagonistic crowds peacefully and wisely. Lots of times where he showed caring (his behavior toward his wife) and a sane personality (cracking turkey jokes with his daugthers).

> Seems like Obama was put on a spot more than other presidents.

Another element there is the benchmark against which he set himself up for -- Hope and Change. I remember having a lot of hope and now after 8 years, it feels kid of "meh". There were some good things, but also a lot of blunders. I guess I shouldn't expect much from that political office.

Not sure about Trump. Having lived in the Rust Belt I can see how people there understand and follow him. And I heard he just withdrew from TPP, not bad so far.

I agree that many people, particularly on the right, hold Obama to an unrealistic standard while willingly overlooking much more serious flaws among candidates they support. However, I'm not sure I agree that you can't attack the man, can you really separate the policy from the man at this level?

I for one find nothing offensive about attacking his integrity due to his massive expansion of state surveillance. To me that seems like a case of poor policy and poor integrity.

On a personal level, I find him much more genuine and likable than Trump, I'm sure Obama would be great to grab a beer or coffee with. On the other hand, I much rather the President be terrible to grab coffee with but in return not think it acceptable to order drone strikes on American citizens.

The guy was unqualified for the job.

Just think about what it takes to be sitting on top of the massive hierarchy that is the govt.

If there is an issue X you need to know who to talk to, who to trust, who has power and influence to make things happen, what you can offer them in return etc etc. How the fuck was Obama ever qualified to know all that?

So if you have an issue with Education or Pakistan or Wall Street lots of delegation happens to random people who have their own agendas.

So what happened in his first couple years, was he was just used by much more savvy operators. And once he realized it, he spent the remaining years trusting no one.

You can't take someone with a few years of real world experience put them in charge of a massive org and expect them to know what they are doing.

But unfortunately as Daniel Kahnemen says there is huge demand for overconfidence. So we end up with leaders like Obama and Trump.

He was definitely in over his head. The constant vacations and 333 golf outings are telling imho. Major props to him for keeping us out of a large scale war though.

"someone with a few years of real world experience put them in charge of a massive org" is objectively not Trump. However you want to cut it, he has an adult life of real-world experience doing exactly that.

I wish the vacations bit would die a quick death. He was present more often than Bush. I haven't seen much that says he was in over his head, would appreciate some accounts of that.

I'd also argue the connection between running a large org and being skilled in any specific area - you don't expect Satya to understand the specifics on how the azure VM is set up, that's why you have a VP.

True about Trump having the experience with a large org and what it takes to run it, but its going to take him a while to learn the DC org chart being an outsider and thats going to be his biggest weakness in getting anything done.

EDIT: to be clear I don't think Trump is qualified