Perhaps you noticed it on social media this weekend: the return of Barack Obama, and the nostalgic yearning among certain of your friends for a “real” president of the United States. On Saturday, we were treated to a contrast between our supposedly “we”-centric former president and our current “me”-centric Orange One. The composure, the class, the character — these attractive attributes were in sharp relief at two virtual commencement speeches to our nation’s 2020 graduates.

Or were they?

Former presidents, from Washington on down, have traditionally held fast to a fundamental courtesy: that of declining to criticize one’s successor in the Oval Office. It makes sense, too, since only a former president can truly fathom the weighty challenges of the office. Recently, though, this protocol had begun to be breached. It started with Jimmy Carter, who never seemed to get over his trouncing at the hands of Ronald Reagan. And last week, we saw Barack Obama, whose legacy of failure has been laid bare by President Donald Trump, take a cheap shot at his successor amid a national crisis.

“An absolute chaotic disaster,” Obama called it, referring to the Trump administration’s handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. He went on to lament the “selfish” and “tribal” mindset of Donald Trump and his followers, and “seeing others as an enemy.”

Perhaps our 44th president has forgotten his infamous comments to Latinos in 2010: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends,” he said.

Never mind that Obama uttered last week’s remarks during a private call with roughly 3,000 former staffers; they were meant for far broader consumption, and they were leaked accordingly.

Which brings us to this weekend’s virtual commencement addresses, the first to a gathering of graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and the second to graduates generally from across the land. Here Obama was more restrained, but he couldn’t resist taking another swipe at our current president in front of what he must’ve assumed was a more friendly crowd, those graduates from the HBCUs: “More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” he said. “A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

The irony? Trump’s work on behalf of Historically Black Colleges and Universities has won the praise of blacks across the country.

Donald Trump is a lethal counterpuncher, of course, and he didn’t waste much time in firing back. “Look,” he said, “he was an incompetent president. That’s all I can say. Grossly incompetent.”

The gloves are fully off now, and the stakes are high. Barack Obama has invited a vicious war of words between now and November, and we suspect he’ll have his hands full.