He has overcome–with a cool head. What a contrast with Trump. Below is a great paragraph, written by David Maraniss in the Durango Herald, describing President Obama’s cool-headed temperament. I especially like how Maraniss concludes his paragraph by noting Obama’s attraction to critical thinking. It plays a big part in accounting for Obama’s success. His cool head, combined with patient and rational thought, has definitely prevailed. He knows how to play intellectual chess–and in politics, the long game.
“His coolness as president can best be understood by the sociological forces that shaped him before he reached the White House. There is a saying among native Hawaiians that goes: Cool head, main thing. This was the culture in which Obama reached adolescence on the island of Oahu, and before that during the four years he lived with his mother in Jakarta. Never show too much. Never rush into things. Maintain a personal reserve and live by your own sense of time. This sensibility was heightened when he developed an affection for jazz, the coolest mode of music, as part of his self-tutorial on black society that he undertook while living with white grandparents in a place where there were very few African Americans. As he entered the political world, the predominantly white society made it clear to him the dangers of coming across as an angry black man. As a community organizer, he refined the skill of leading without being overt about it, making the dispossessed citizens he was organizing feel their own sense of empowerment. As a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, he developed an affinity for rational thought.”
Prometheus Unbound 
Yes, we cherish Obama’s cool and collect thoughtful response to highly charged situations to sort things first before taking actions but that goes so far. At some point dancing around stops and proper responses and actions must be taken.