>However, when I look at his role in that, it was passive and distant.
>He never really showed leadership.


This is where his background and his reputation were good predictors for his performance as President.

When he taught, his students found that after his first semester, he was disinterested and increasingly indifferent to the responsibilities.

His voting/attendance record in the Senate were bad, to the point where even Harry Reid chastised him.

When he worked at a law firm, there were rumors that some of his associates grumbled that he often sat in his office with a laptop, writing content for his book.

As editor/president for Harvard Law Review, he never penned a piece on his own for the journal. As someone who has been a columnist in a magazine for 13 years and has studied the workings of magazines and newspapers for a long time, that's quite unusual.

When I've raised these issues before with others, I received the, "Oh, you just don't like him, why don't you admit it, you didn't want him for racial reasons".

As intelligent and charismatic as he was, he COULD have been a good president. But a lack of experience in key areas and a lack of work ethic (he himself said he was lazy) hurt him.