Ten reasons why people loved Barack Obama
Thursday 19 January 2017 23:03, UK
By Zoe Catchpole, News Reporter
1. His tears for the 20 "beautiful little kids" murdered at Sandy Hook
On 14 December 2012, Obama gave a speech trying to try to help Americans make sense of the murder of 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
As he started to talk about the future they might have had, his tears started to fall. "Our hearts", he said, "are broken".
He told Americans: "As a country we have been through this too many times."
Just over three years later, in January 2016, Obama would weep again as he spoke about gun violence.
But while he mourned the victims of America's mass murders, he must also have wept at his inability to use his presidency to do anything about it.
After Sandy Hook he tried, but the measures he had proposed failed. Capitol Hill would not be moved.
There have been more than 1,000 mass shootings since Adam Lanza walked into the elementary school and gunned down those six- and seven-year-olds.
2. The Situation Room
This could, arguably, be the defining image of his presidency.
Obama on a fold-up chair watching drone images of the raid in Abbottabad during which Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden.
The President should have been in another room getting read-outs but wanted to see the footage, along with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
He sat in that room on 1 May 2011 until all the SEALS had returned to Afghanistan.
Then he told the world: "Tonight I can report to the American people, and to the world, that the United States has conducted an operation that kills Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qadea and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children."
3. The time he sang Amazing Grace
He nearly didn't.
On the flight to South Carolina to read the eulogy for murdered pastor Rev Clementa Pinckney in June 2015, Obama told his wife and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett that he might sing.
He told them: "I don't know whether I am going to do it but I just wanted to warn you two that I might sing."
Michelle asked him: "Why on Earth would that fit in?"
But both said to him he should see how he felt once he was in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where white supremacist Dylann Roof had shot nine people dead.
That might account for the slight hesitation before he starts to sing.
4. When he signed the Obamacare bill and Joe Biden told him it was a "big ** deal"
Biden was right. It was a "BFD"; as it was later abbreviated.
On 23 March 2010, Obama signed the Affordable Care Act to give millions of low paid families access to low-cost health care.
It came into force in 2014 and since then the number of people without health care insurance has fallen by 16 million.
When Biden introduced Obama before he signed the act, he leaned in and told him: "This is a big ** deal."
Unfortunately, as the vice president later explained, he was looking directly at a reporter who could lip read and it was then picked up on the microphone.
Biden cautioned years later: "A piece of advice about that BFD stuff: assume every microphone is on."
Now Donald Trump is to take a crack at dismantling Obamacare.
5. The moment he let a five-year-old boy touch his hair
This image hung in the White House for eight years.
It was taken by White House photographer Pete Souza on 8 May 2009.
The boy in the picture is Jacob Philadelphia, the son of a White House staffer who was leaving.
Jacob had asked Obama: "I want to know if my hair is just like yours."
The President replied: "Why don't you touch it and see for yourself."
When Jacob hesitated he said: "Touch it dude."
Then he asked him: "So what do you think?" and Jacob replied: "Yes it does feel the same."
Obama has often been criticised for failing to tackle race relations but the image was described by the New York Times as showing how the President was such a "potent symbol" for black Americans.
The Washington Post said it "speaks volumes about Obama and race".
6. When he told Bill Clinton to get on the plane
Obama even got to boss Bill.
Well, he was clearly keen to get back home on Air Force One.
The two men had been to the funeral of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, the plane was waiting to go, and Clinton was taking his time.
What's a president to do? Holler from the top of the steps, obviously.
Despite Obama's calls of "Bill, let's go!" Clinton was not in any hurry.
Eventually after much shaking of head and clapping to get his attention number 42 appeared with a sort of shruggy, huggy gesture of apology for number 44.
7. When he kissed his wife at the basketball
There can be few more awkward moments than sitting next to your parents at the basketball while they grab a cheeky snog.
Apart from if your parents happen to be POTUS and FLOTUS, and it's caught on kiss cam.
So spare a thought for poor Malia Obama, who found herself in precisely this situation when her father took a break from campaigning in July 2012 to watch a game.
The Obamas were, of course, caught on kiss cam as they watched an exhibition game between the American Olympic team and Brazil.
Obama is more than a casual basketball fan, he played the game seriously and shoots a mean hoop.
It was also disclosed he played a game every election day - a superstition.
It has been suggested he might even run a team after he leaves office and he once said: "I've fantasised about being able to put together a team and how much fun that would be."
8. When he goaded Donald Trump with a Lion King video
There was a time, in 2011, when Obama was dogged by claims from the star of the television show The Apprentice that he wasn't born in the US.
One Donald Trump claimed Obama would not show his birth certificate because there was something on it he didn't like. Perhaps, he suggested, it said Obama was Muslim.
Obama addressed the claims at the White House Correspondents dinner that year by playing slightly altered footage of the moment Simba is held up to the light in the Lion King.
He quipped: "Tonight for the first time I am releasing my official birth video."
The film played, with his date of birth in the lower left hand side, and Obama explained: "… that was a joke, that was not my real birth video, that was a children's cartoon."
He released his birth certificate and, turns out, he was indeed born in Hawaii.
Trump was at the dinner that night. Obama "praised" him for "making the really hard decisions" like firing Gary Busey over Meatloaf in an episode of The Celebrity Apprentice.
Look how that turned out.
9. When he had to shake hands with Donald Trump
As the world wondered how Barack Obama had segued to Donald Trump - so did Barack Obama and Donald Trump
And the pictures from the White House on 10 November 2016 betrayed precisely those thoughts.
They also sparked a thousand of memes.
What Obama said was: "Our top priority is to ensure our President-elect is successful."
What the Obama administration meant was the subject of all of the social media.
10. That "Obama out" mic drop
At his final White House correspondents dinner, Obama put two fingers to his lips, kissed them and dropped his mic, saying: "Obama out".
It will endure as a powerful image of his farewell to the US but it is also a nod to the basketball star Kobe Bryant.
Two weeks before Obama gave his speech, LA Lakers giant Bryant, known as Black Mamba, played his last NBA game.
Afterwards his put two fingers to his lips, kissed them and then dropped the mic.
A fitting way to bow out.
Read more:
Watch live coverage of the inauguration on Sky News from 3pm and Sky Atlantic from 4pm on Friday. Adam Boulton is in the US presenting a special Sky News programme - Trump: America's President - at midnight tonight.