<b>Shreekant Sambrani:</b> The tragedy of Barack Obama

The US polity and Obama's persona are key to understanding why he failed to deliver to his potential

It is bad enough that your successor to the mightiest office in the world is your very antithesis in every respect — intellect, probity, grace, civility, even appearance. That your putting your enormous prestige on the line could not prevent it is worse. And the worst of all is that even before you have left office, formal steps are launched to dismantle what you considered your prime legacy. Those would be Barack Obama’s thoughts in the last days of his presidency of the United States if he were a brooding man, which he is not, but should have been. That