From a New York Times profile of Barack Obama, the first I’ve actually read since maybe January or so:

Mr. Obama nods. That’s intriguing. But he prefers his own riff, which not incidentally trains the eye not on him but on his crowds. “I love when I’m shaking hands on a rope line and”— he mimes the motion, hand over hand — “I see little old white ladies and big burly black guys and Latino girls and all their hands are entwining. They’re feeding on each other as much as on me.”

He shrugs; it’s that distancing eye of the author.

“It’s like I’m just the excuse.”

May we all find a way to be an excuse for bringing people together.

PS. I hate these kind of pieces — he’s not perfect, and it’s cynicism comes on hard when reading something like this.