A leader is a blank slate for the projection of all our hopes, Barack Obama perhaps more so than most. To some he symbolizes an end to racism, to some an end to partisan politics, to some a salve for economic wounds. To me, he cuts a symbolic figure as our first cosmopolitan president. He is, that is, a citizen of the world. I project cosmopolitanism onto Obama because of his background: The Kansan mother and Kenyan father, the upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia. His political birth took place in Chicago. But to me Obama is a global citizen in...