NOAH ROTHMAN: The Smallness of Barack Obama.

Eventually, the scales will fall from Democratic eyes. Their gauzy recollections of the Obama years will one day give way to a realization that he presided over the immolation of their party. Obama knows this. Why else would he commit himself to a course defined by such smallness? The president, the most powerful man on earth, was reduced in his final days in office to drumming up enthusiasm for state assembly races. Today, when he should be focusing on building his library and serving as a sagacious ambassador to the world, he lowers himself to offer a muted and impotent burble of opposition to his successor. On Monday, the former leader of the free world endorsed Sophia King in the race for alderman of Chicago’s Fourth Ward.

Obama cannot withdraw from the political realm. If he does, he risks allowing the narrative to get away from him. Any sober liberal reflection on the president’s legacy will necessarily yield to despair over all the opportunities that were lost. So Obama will speak, endorse, and issue statements. He will posture and preen and do whatever he can to make sure the Democratic Party’s next leader is cast in his mold. So long as Obama can fill the silence, Democrats won’t have time to reflect on the president’s legacy.

We shouldn’t have Barack Obama to kick around anymore, but we probably always will.