How quickly things can change

Official White House photograph of President Barack Obama.

This article comes from the Associated Press. Whatever your political persuasion happens to be you have to marvel at the change in President Obama's presidency from just a short while ago. Here is an excerpt from the AP story:

     After a string of sunny seasons gripped by controversy, crises and plummeting popularity, the summer of 2015 has been among the most productive stretches of Obama's presidency. [emphasis added] Late June victories in the Supreme Court on health care and gay marriage, along with a win for his trade agenda on Capitol Hill, were followed by the landmark Iran nuclear deal in July and the raising of the U.S. flag over a new embassy in Cuba in August.
     Instead of being overshadowed by the 2016 presidential campaign, Obama's agenda has often been driving the debate among the candidates running to replace him.
     And yet to the president, one of his summer's biggest successes may simply be making it through his annual vacation on the tony Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard largely uninterrupted.