Obama’s legislative legacy may be in jeopardy from President-elect Donald Trump, but the grace of his prose will endure. The nation’s narrative in coming years will change not only politically but also poetically in how our essences are framed and our meanings distilled. "I've never worked for a politician who values words as much as the president does," Obama senior advisor David Axelrod told The Times in 2009. Obama’s speeches “were compelling and inspiring,” says Robert Dallek, a presidential historian and author of “An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963.” “I’d rate him pretty high an as orator. Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were very impressive, and so were Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, who had a kind of literary flair.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 13, 2017 00:52 UTC