President Barack Obama might have a bit of gray in his hair, but as he nears age 50, he still looks like a young man, especially compared with some of the even grayer politicians in Washington and at the helm in other countries. Obama will turn 50 on Thursday. There is no doubt about the date and his age since the publication of his birth certificate in late April.
There is also no doubt about the place of his birth. That issue was driven by real estate mogul Donald Trump, who himself at the time appeared to harbour ambitions for the presidency and insisted that Obama had been born in Kenya.
Though the question had long since been answered through Obama's candidacy for the presidency, Trump and a group around him known as "birthers" - people who doubted that Obama was in fact born in the US - for weeks put pressure on Obama to release the "long" form of his birth certificate.
The matter was finally put to rest when the White House published the original birth certificate showing that Obama was born in the state of Hawaii on August 4, 1961, which made him eligible to hold the office of president.
The public could finally see what they already knew and Obama demanded an end to the "silliness" over his birthplace.
Now as Obama approaches the half-century milestone, the media are critiquing his looks. His shortly cropped hair, of course, has a few more patches of gray. But this isn't really news. Insiders noticed changes soon after he took office in January 2009 at age 47.
"Well that didn't take long. Just 44 days into the job, and President Obama is going gray," a New York Times article cattily commented, showing side-by-side photos of Obama in 2007 without any gray, the other in 2009 with plenty.
All presidents go grayer while in office, but it has rarely happened as quickly. Is the job wearing him out?
Only a few US presidents have dealt with the tough issues he has had to wrestle: ending two wars while grappling with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the current highly explosive debt drama.
Mixed into the situation is a fundamentalist opposition that is throwing up every barrier they can to trip him up. Truly, no time for softies.
There is no doubt that the gray state of US affairs overtook Obama more quickly than expected. His "yes we can" phase - a high-flying notion about changing the US and the world - lasted only a few months. Then the magic fizzled. The Obama phenomenon has meanwhile also come to mean that, in the polls at least, few other presidents had fallen so quickly into disfavour.
However, even with flecks of gray in his hair, Obama is youthful and fresh compared with other world leaders, and still generates more enthusiasm.
At the recent G-8 Summit in Deauville, France, only after Obama appeared did crowds of people turn up in the expected numbers with excited expressions and outstretched hands.
Obama's casual saunter can take an audience's breath away. He maintains the image of a young man with an easy-going smile. Next to him, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicholas Sarkozy look much older and sallow-skinned. Journalists often note how cool and mellow Obama appears.
What other world leader plays basketball in his free time? Who writes children's books on the side and what other president causes a furor when pictured in swimming trunks?
The Obama phenomenon is hard to summarise. One thing for certain: he has not exactly found political fortune in his two-and-a-half years as the most powerful man in the world. Many things have gone awry: The economy is languishing; he was unable to keep his promise to close the tainted military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu threw a spanner in the works of his Middle East policy.
And it is going to continue to be dicey in the days ahead of Obama's 50th. The fight over raising the debt limit threatens to be his hardest hurdle yet. Americans have begun to prepare for the unthinkable: that the US could default on its debt and be unable to pay its bills.
Things looked precarious on the weekend. Republicans and Democrats, each in control of a house of Congress, were playing chicken up until the last. If no agreement is reached, default will set in on Wednesday, the day before Obama turns 50.
In difficult moments, Obama has relied on his comedic talents. When the issue of his birth got on his nerves, he counterattacked with an "official birth" video that humorously acknowledged his father's African roots.
Obama, son of a white American woman and a black Kenyan man, showed the video at the White House Correspondents' Association: It was the dramatic scene from the movie "The Lion King," when the elder lion, Mufasa, proudly presents his new born son, the cub Simba.
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