It's in Obama's actions that his claim for a more substantive legacy lies. That's where what matters is what a president does, not what he looks like. The mere presence of a black president in the White House, however, can't do anything to slow massive layoffs or keep banks from imploding. But in 2008 as the wheels were coming off the economy and anxieties for the future surged, Americans had an aching need for a national feel-good story that summoned forth their better angels. That's no small feat given the nation's peculiar history. For as long as the Republic lasts, his will be the first nonwhite face grade-schoolers encounter as their eyes scan, from left to right, the timeline of American presidents starting with George Washington. Obama was always going to have a special place in history books as the nation's first African-American president. While the successor gets the benefit of at least not being the hapless guy before him, establishing a legacy that's favorably remembered through the ages takes much, much more. Succeeding an unpopular White House occupant only goes so far, however.

Bush, who's unlikely to make many historians' lists of the presidential greats. Similarly, President Obama no doubt benefited from comparisons to George W. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan probably couldn't have done better than to follow, respectively, James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter.

To that end, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. President Obama walks outside the Oval Office on May 3.Īny American president hoping to stake a claim to being viewed by future generations as great and transformative - or at least very good and effective - would be wise to choose his predecessor well.

Million dollar pyramid obama bin alden