Education Quote by Evan Thomas

Thomas sketches Obama less as a partisan combatant than as a civics instructor parachuted into a knife fight. Calling him "the great teacher" flatters and indicts at once: it frames Obama as a figure who believes politics can be solved by better reasoning and calmer rhetoric, then quietly notes the social risk of taking that posture in a country allergic to being lectured. The line "stands above everybody" is doing double duty. It evokes the old "no drama" Obama brand - professorial, measured, allergic to the tribal blood sport - while also hinting at the charge that this very restraint can read as hauteur, especially to people who want a champion, not a moderator.

The subtext is about legitimacy and performance. In American politics, moral authority is powerful, but it is also radioactive: if you claim the role of referee, you invite the crowd to test whether you're secretly playing for one side. Thomas registers that tension with "some condescension in it", a phrase that acknowledges the critique without surrendering the compliment. Obama becomes the parent in the room, which is admirable when the room wants parenting and infuriating when it wants retribution.

Contextually, this lands in the post-2008 mythos of Obama as national healer - a promise built on depolarization as a personal virtue. The "pretty brave role" is not bravery in the battlefield sense; it's the audacity of assuming persuasion still works, that Americans can be talked out of their resentments. Thomas is describing a presidency that wagers on pedagogy as power, and recognizes the hazard: teachers get graded, and the class is armed.