What a glorious day in June.

The Barack Obama Presidential Center opening in Chicago gave us a complete contradiction of the times we've been living through. Community rather than chaos, lightness versus darkness, and hope instead of fear.

I might add: beautiful music and language that lifted up instead of tearing down. A garden, a library, a basketball court, art and an arch all adorn the new arrival, a tower on the city's South Side.

Obama, the only president of my generation, did us proud. In retrospect, his eight years in office (2009 to 2017) seem to shine brighter than a new Lincoln penny. As he's aged to 64, he presents as an impossibly elegant, erudite and eloquent man worthy of such a grand celebration — miles away from a cage match and a demolished ballroom at the White House.

Donald Trump went wild with jealousy, seeing the class with which Barack and Michelle Obama conducted themselves in their welcoming speeches. The genuine outpouring of love and affection they were draped in by the thousands. How they critiqued his ugliness without mentioning his name.

Deep down, the 80-year-old president knows the Obamas are as cool as they come, and he knows we (the people) know it too. The green algae in the Reflecting Pool are aware of that as well. What a perfect metaphor for him: green slime.

The nation's capital city is going the way of the Roman Empire as Trump tampers with our most precious public places. Others are the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Mall, Lafayette Square and the bridge between Arlington National Cemetery and the gleaming shrine of the Lincoln Memorial. The White House Rose Garden is gone too, one of his first murder victims.

The Affordable Care Act was Obama's signature accomplishment. But I love that he began his career as a community organizer, as a stranger in Chicago, and that he instinctively grasped what a great city it is and could be. "The city of broad shoulders ... I found what I was looking for," he told the throng at the center's opening.

If only Obama's political story hadn't run straight into Trump in the 2016 election. The collision resulted in losing much of his legacy from the second term. Trump took pleasure in tearing up Obama's Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Agreement on climate change. Each of these treaties, negotiated by former Secretary of State John Kerry, were key diplomatic feats for international safety and stability.

The Supreme Court was missing a member too, because Obama didn't force (with presidential power) a certain senator to hold a hearing. Also on the list of things he didn't do: regulate the rise of Silicon Valley.

Finally, the worst, most unforgettable flaw in Obama's record: He hired James Comey as FBI director in the first place and failed to fire him in the second place. The Republican — yes, a Republican — seemed dead set on helping Hillary Clinton lose the 2016 election with his meaningless statements that didn't add up to a hill of beans. Perhaps Obama couldn't imagine Clinton, his chosen successor, could lose to a lout like Trump. For what it's worth (not much), he could have campaigned harder and, in cold comfort, she won the people's vote.

(I wonder what Hillary was thinking under that broad-brimmed hat.)

The most meaningful symbol on the center campus connects back to a visionary Unitarian, the Rev. Theodore Parker, an abolitionist before the Civil War. Parker authored the phrase that Obama and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. renewed: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. ... But from what I see, I am sure it bends towards justice." Obama pointed to the large sculptural arch and explained its origins, quoting the brilliant Bostonian Parker word by word, which made me happy. He died in 1860, before war broke out, yet moved the public mind on slavery.

Parker, King and Obama are brothers in spirit, brothers in the 250-year-old American project, the dream that we must pursue anew with hope for change.

The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Photo credit: Library of Congress at Unsplash