In theory, at least, all presidents are servants of the people who elected them. In the case of Barack Obama, it has seemed from the start that the idea as applied to him was more than mere metaphor. He is the first president in my lifetime whom the country felt obligated to remind that he know his place.
We've endured too many tragedies. And each time I learn the news I react not as a President, but as anybody else would - as a parent.
I'm the president of the United States. I'm not the emperor of the United States.
The way this works for us Presidents is … we always tell whoever wins that we were crossing our fingers.
It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man.
Who knows - I would like to think that I'd be a fantastic president, and I'd be extremely levelheaded, and I'd be very fair, and I wouldn't persecute people, and I'd listen to the people that disagreed with me and all the rest of it, but who knows.
I've always been of the view that people want to see their president periodically not taking himself too seriously.
I'm not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live.
