He was a decent, well-meaning man of integrity, but rather too heady and aloof-seeming for his own good ... always trying to stay "above the fray" caused some people to see him as snooty, and that was crazy-making especially for those who hated the idea of an "uppity" you-know-what in office.

Ultimately as much as there was to admire about him, he was a disappointment to me though. He seemed too uneven -- almost random -- in asserting himself. He has continued his "above the fray" vibe in the face of Trump's assaults on democracy and human dignity, which in my view should have overridden the convention of former presidents staying out of their successor's affairs. Instead he posts photos on social media of wind surfing with playboys like Richard Branson while the nation burns; almost joyfully uncaring of the "optics". He was, toward the end of his second term, increasingly a creature of the elitist wing of the Democratic Party, which has a lot to do with Trump eking out a victory in the 2016 election. For all his idealism, his neglect of / indifference to his role as defacto leader of the DNC, his leaving unseemly cronies in charge of it, and other lapses helped feed many of the problems that led to Trump's victory. Also ... there was that drone strike program, the rising levels of deportations of immigrants, and other morally questionable things that tainted his legacy.

Close, but no cigar, I'm afraid. Most of the good he did is now undone and plowed under.

@mordant I guess we only see very small parts of what is going on in the U,S (and indeed any other country) and very difficult because of the difference in our political arenas. It is rather sad to me that he wasnt what I imagined him to be but Hey Ho, Ours are worse at the moment! Thanks for that info. Get it!

@jacpod Yes, I think many Americans are totally unfamiliar with your election system where elections don't necessarily happen on a regular schedule and power is shared by more than two parties. If they would really look at it for more than ten seconds I think they'd like it. There's a thing called Duverger's Law that says that a 3rd political party can never win national elections in a system like ours and it has not only held true so far but is one of the few dictums in politics that's considered an ironclad law. The Republican party may well self-immolate over Trump, but that's the ONLY way a new party (whether in name or not) will ever be able to take its place.

And this is a big part of our problem. You have two ingrown parties floating crappy candidates, which produces both polarization and apathy about voting. Trump's election is the ultimate expression of that; he won basically because of outside influence, voter suppression and the Democrats putting up a very weak / uninspiring candidate with appeal pretty much only to centrist / elitist Democrats. I voted for her, but held my nose when I did it. If Bernie Sanders had been the Democratic nominee, he would have been the first President in my lifetime that I was genuinely excited to support. In fact his is the first campaign I worked in and donated to. And I'm 61. That says something, and not about me, about the system.

In your multi-party coalition system, for any given voter, there is always, or at least more often, a "Bernie" to root for, even if you don't always win and even if when you do win, it's generally not "winner take all". I think that encourages interest and participation in politics by average people at levels we Americans can only imagine.

It's one thing for us to say that voting is a civic duty, but we have also made it a pointless chore.