Springtime for Obama

WHAT will be the defining image of the presidency of Barack Obama? It could be a picture of him signing the historic national healthcare insurance programme ("Obamacare"). Or perhaps the moment when he announced that Osama Bin Ladin was captured and killed by US forces? His statement that the American military intervention in Iraq was over? Or was it the time when he delivered the news that the US and Cuba were re-establishing diplomatic relations?

Or could it be that the defining image of the Obama presidency would be that of him singing Amazing Grace? That happened on June 26 when he was standing on the stage at the auditorium of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, during the eulogy for the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, one of the nine African-Americans who were shot dead in cold blood by a young white man at the Emanuel African Methodist Church a week earlier.

With the church's leaders occupying the stage behind him, President Obama addressed thousands of mourners for the parishioners who had been slain, repeating the opening words of the hymn. He paused for a few seconds and then suddenly started singing the first words of the hymn. One of the pastors sitting behind him stood up and called out: "Sing it, Mr President."