Does the president create the times, or do the times create the president?

Midway through the recent documentary from filmmaker Ken Burns about the Roosevelt political family — Teddy, Eleanor and Franklin D. — I got stuck on that question.

The record is not yet settled on FDR, who was either the savior of the nation (my thought) or an evil manipulator who pushed the nation toward socialism and undermined its values of independence.

There are many viewpoints between those extremes. Because my family was determinedly blue collar, Roosevelt certainly was OK by us. He is viewed as the man who saved the nation from the Great Depression, and German and Japanese imperialism too.

Not a bad legacy, if we could only agree on it.

I present this reality as a way to get into talking about President Barack Obama, who, the record indicates, cannot walk on water, calm the troubled masses with his words, vanquish enemies at will or deliver flawless health care for everyone.

The president has clearly defined enemies all over the place and is not shy about blowing up at least some of the most distant of them. You would think the Republicans would be cheering. They cheered for President George W. Bush when he was warring but accomplishing nothing. Obama at least has key bodies to show for his aggression.

But that is a big disappointment for those of us who thought we were voting for a man of peace who would solve the world’s problems even as he paved all of our potholes, delivered on health care, closed down the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and dazzled us with his managerial and leadership brilliance.

It’s probably a big disappointment for him too and a history lesson in how the world actually works. Elections are dandy, and so are inaugurations, but not long after that, reality comes grinding in. My guess would be that killing his enemies on the other side of the world was not on his list of priorities when he was a fresh president.

Then it became necessary, and he became very facile at it.

Just ask Osama bin Laden. Whoops, you can’t. Obama killed him.

What mystery is revealed by these developments?

It’s clear now after six years President Obama is just like almost all other presidents, a man who is stuck in the flow of events he does not control. The fact that there is a peanut gallery of eager Republicans pointing this out at every opportunity isn’t helping him.

They want to keep arguing that it was Obama’s fault that Ebola is a threat, that kids come slipping over the borders, that the Russians are acting just like Russians and that a huge government doesn’t always act the way it should, or even react very well. And of course, there is that loony, troubling subset of argument that the man is a Kenyan socialist. That just won’t go away, because part of America lives on emotion as fuel, not reality.

There is not enough juice in reality to keep hatred going. It’s just too complicated. That is where the realists live, the ones who know FDR played some role, but not the central role, in how the Depression turned out, and how the wars were won. Realists give FDR immense credit for strength in the face of overwhelming odds. That is a lot.

Obama can say the nation’s economy turned during his presidency, that some of its enemies were vanquished, that health care, however imperfect, became widely available. These are accomplishments surrounded by embarrassing failures. Every president has them.

But we need to recognize that reality bites, and it bites hard, when you are no longer working under an assumption that you rule, and hence control, a challenging world. Events decide the presidency. The presidency doesn’t decide events.

The best you can do is try to react in a way that does the least lasting damage.

Charles M. Madigan is presidential writer in residence and head of journalism at Roosevelt University. He wrote this for the Chicago Tribune.