Obama gets image boost with 2 Supreme Court decisions, Charleston church eulogy

US President Barack Obama's image got a needed boost with the US Supreme Court decisions on the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage and his emphatic eulogy for the nine people who were killed inside a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

"In the past 10 days, through the intervention of America's top judges combined with public revulsion towards the murderous actions of a white supremacist, Obama has seen the national mood shift sharply in his direction," noted The Guardian newspaper.

It said "a newly confident president has been visible" compared to a "cautious" politician who ran the White House in the past six years.

In Charleston, Obama sang the "Amazing Grace" and said that "none of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight."

"Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There's no shortcut. And we don't need more talk," he said.

The New York Times said his Charleston speech was "one of his presidency's most impassioned reflections on race."

"But politically unfettered after his re-election in 2012, and angered by the racially motivated killings in Charleston and the deaths of black men at the hands of white police officers, the president on Friday dispensed with his usual reticence, rediscovered the soaring rhetoric that inspired his supporters in 2008, and spoke with unusual — and occasionally acerbic — directness," the newspaper said.

The Washington Post said, "Inside the arena, the president's eulogy turned into a meditation on the meaning of grace and a call to action on the issues of guns and race, two of the thorniest and most divisive problems of his presidency."

In his speech, the USA Today noted, President Obama used "grace" 35 times and "blind" eight times.

Politico noted that "Obama's presidency is reborn."

"Obama finished the week in Charleston singing, really singing, and returned to a White House lit up like a rainbow that people who wanted to celebrate just felt drawn to. Hours after the partying stopped, they stayed late into the night, just sitting and staring at the building and thinking about how much had just changed," it said.