The Cost of Barack Obama’s Speech

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/the-cost-of-barack-obamas-speech.html?_r=0

“I found myself spending time with people of means — law firm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists,” Senator Barack Obama wrote in his book “The Audacity of Hope.” “As a rule, they were smart, interesting people. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale.”

He wrote in 2006: “I know that as a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met. I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of … the people that I’d entered public life to serve.”

Is it a betrayal of that sentiment for the former president to have accepted a reported $400,000 to speak to a Wall Street firm? Perhaps not, but it is disheartening that a man whose historic candidacy was premised on a moral examination of politics now joins almost every modern president in cashing in. And it shows surprising tone deafness, more likely to be expected from the billionaires the Obamas have vacationed with these past months than from a president keenly attuned to the worries and resentments of the 99 percent.

Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, began their post-White House careers with twin book deals reported to be worth as much as $65 million. And why not? Mr. Obama is a pathbreaking figure and established writer whose two terms traversed a stormy period economically, militarily and diplomatically. Through his writing, Mr. Obama could shed important light on his decision making. As a couple and a family, the Obamas brought grace, empathy and high standards to their time in the White House, in stark contrast to the workaday vulgarity of its current occupants. Not many administration look-backs promise education and inspiration, and the Obamas’ books are much anticipated.