The inter-racial harmony within the US itself may still be a work in progress but President Obama has proved himself a worthy champion of the democratic ideal. The world is not short of critics of democracy, or of leaders who represent its antithesis. They have not been able to do that with President Obama at the helm. The whole democratic world, in other words, has a vested interest in the good health of American democracy. In New Zealand - as in every other part of the free world - we are safer and stronger if American democracy can provide the US with leadership of a quality that the rest of the world might aspire to.

Source: New Zealand Herald November 07, 2016 16:11 UTC