You seem -- you know -- glum, unhappy, depressed.

Why don't you lay off? I am not in denial over my vote for Obama. He's doing a great job.

Maybe you can offer some examples of his many successes.

Exhibit A is the responding economy. The recession may be bottoming -- that's what the stock market seems to be saying. What other reason could there be besides the stimulus and Obama's spending proposals -- along with his plans to tax the pudding out of those who can afford it?

Like you? Just because you can afford higher taxes, or could before the crash, doesn't mean they're necessary. And the stimulus package won't kick in until next year at the earliest -- that was one of the major arguments against it. To the extent economists matter, the average grade 53 of them recently awarded Messrs. Obama, Bernanke and Geithner was a "C".

The President gave a speech at Georgetown the other day, and eloquently compared our economy to "our house upon a rock." That's what it should be, a strong economic foundation, and I think he's really trying -- with his emphasis on alternative energy, on education, and his determination to revamp health care.

Every federal attempt to manage energy markets has proved a bust -- and driven up costs. As far as education goes, Obama has deployed as education secretary, sort of a national schools superintendent, a former superintendent of Chicago's public schools that are so bad Obama would not put his own children in them -- just as he doesn't enroll them in Washington's public schools now.

And do you really want people like him and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd -- the last two of whom gave us the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles -- creating a national health care system? When, ever, has the federal government overseen or operated anything more efficiently than the private sector?

But you have to admit that finally we have a president respected in Europe and the Middle East.

To the degree he is respected in Europe, statist, redistributionist leaders there regard him as an ideological soulmate. Still, on his recent European tour, he won little in the way of more stimulus spending or more troop commitments to Afghanistan.

Any deference Arab and Islamic Middle Easterners accord him derives from their hope he and Hillary Clinton will trash Israel -- or at least prove less resolute in backing it. By the way, the Iranians loved his concession, a switch from the Bush administration, letting them continue to enrich uranium during diplomatic talks. Continued...