First, It Was "Where’s Waldo?" Now, It’s Where’s President Obama?

Do you remember those books that started coming out in the late 1980s, “Where’s Waldo?”  The title character, Waldo, would be somewhere in a big two-page picture spread.  The idea of the book was to find Waldo in each picture.  Even though Waldo was always dressed in the same red and white shirt and hat, it was not easy to find him.  Sometimes you would swear he was nowhere to be found.

The Economist has just published the 2016 edition of its annual “The World in ____”.  On the cover of the magazine are the world’s leaders, apparently arranged in order of importance or relevance.  The fun is trying to identify the various world leaders on the cover and to see where they are ranked.  Not surprisingly, Angela Merkel is front and center.  The United States is well represented, with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Hillary Clinton right next to Chancellor Merkel.

The question is: Where’s President Obama?  Here is the cover.  Look for yourself and see if you can find him:

Actually, he is not hard to find – as long as you look far enough away from the center.  While he is behind President Xi of China and Prime Minister Modi of India, at least he is equal to Vladimir Putin and ahead of Prime Minister Abe of Japan.  Though one wonders, at least in the case of the former, whether President Obama is getting the benefit of the doubt because of the office he holds, as opposed to what he is actually doing with it.