WASHINGTON — On Father’s Day, President Barack Obama could be heard talking about the “myth” of a missing father with which he was raised, a story told, for his benefit, by a loving mother.
“He wasn’t around,” Obama said, with a certain understatement about the dad who abandoned him, in an interview of the president conducted by Harry Smith and aired on CBS News’ “Sunday Morning.”
“One of the things I benefited from was my mother was so generous in describing him,” Obama said.
“He was smart and, you know, hard-working and talented . . . and so as a young boy I could have a sense that he was an important person. It was the myth that I was chasing as opposed to knowing who he really was.
“But despite the tremendous efforts of my mom, no, there’s no doubt that that still left a hole in me,” said the president, father of two young girls and determined today to be the father his wasn’t.
“Where I learned to be a father was looking at some people that I respected. Michelle’s father was just a wonderful man. I mean, here’s a guy who had multiple sclerosis at the age of 30,” Obama said. “And by the time I knew him he was just barely struggling with two crutches to get around. And yet he went to every one of Michelle’s dance recitals, every one of her brother’s basketball games. And it reminded me that, you know, whatever the hardships, whatever the obstacles, you can be a good dad.”
Now that his own life is under such perpetual scrutiny, Obama maintains that there still is only one critic who counts.
“Well, there’s no scrutiny more powerful than Michelle’s scrutiny,” the president told his interviewer. “So I don’t care what other folks are saying. It’s my wife and my kids feeling I am there for them.”
