PRESIDENT OBAMA

I've been creating a sort of score card for the president. When I am being naive and sentimental I give him good marks, particularly by comparison with his predecessor.

Category: Obama/ Bush

Articulateness: 100/ 0
Intelligence: 100/ 0
Culture: 100/ 0

But on matters of substance Obama scores very differently, despite all his promises: promises that I naively believed were honest promises.

I am not talking about health care: Congress has to agree before we can have decent health care for Americans. Obama can't give us that by executive decree. Nor can he abolish the death penalty by himself.

But in areas in which, as president, he has full executive authority, I hold him responsible for the promises that he made. And he did indeed make promises--which he is not keeping.

Category: Obama/ Status Quo Ante (Bush)

Close Guantanamo: 0/ 100
Restore Habeas Corpus: 0/ 100
Stop, Punish Torture: 0/ 100
End war against Iraq: 0/ 100
End war in Afghanistan: 0/ 100

As I see it, Obama is--after one year in office--a complete and utter failure. I would rather have a known enemy--McCain--in office than a dishonest friend. It would take some major changes to make me support Obama right now.

He is a very bright and articulate man, but a spineless self-promoter. His ambitions, as he told them to us, were all either lies or things he didn't care about nearly as much as he cared about being president.

My first president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. I have voted in every presidential election since Ike beat Adlai Stevenson. I have campaigned for Stevenson, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter (the first time), Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barak Obama.

Right now I am as likely to campaign for Barak Obama again as I would be to campaign for Richard Nixon.

Bert Hornback