Omri Ben-Shahar on What Kind of Ex-President Obama Will Be

The Next Ex-Presidency

What kind of ex-president will Barack Obama be?

A few days before the election, as I was contemplating this question, I was going to write a column titled “Clinton Should Nominate Obama to the Supreme Court.” I thought: second only to the presidency, the position of a liberal swing-vote Justice would affect American lives in the most wide-ranging manner.

How quickly and thoroughly this idea has become so profoundly stale!

Without a full-time job, what will Mr. Obama do? Let’s first agree what kind of ex-president he will NOT be. As much as he would love to “just be Barack” for while, play golf, and otherwise bury his head in the sand while a new administration undoes his legacy, he is not old enough as ex-president Reagan was to call it quits. The Secret Service may recommend a quiet private life a-la Bush 41 or 43, but painting portraits of pets is too un-Obama. Like Bill Clinton, he is inflicted with the start-up billionaire condition: he made his “exit” too young.

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