As I said yesterday, I have had a hard time finding a candidate that I could really get behind. Perhaps it is the incredibly uninspiring years that we have just been through, characterized more than anything else by fear-mongering and a lack of consideration of the rights of human beings, that has made it difficult to select. But after a slow start, one candidate has begun to stand out: Barack Obama. Whether it is genuine or not, his demeanor and his words both say, “I am different, together we can fix the country, there is still a chance for America.” We need that.

I have probably noted, herein, my disdain for George Bush more than is strictly necessary, but I am forced to judge him as the worst American President of all time. Among modern Presidents, I give Nixon and Reagan a ties for second worst. I watched Reagan dismantle the safety net that held broken Americans together and place them on the street without even a blink. They are still there.

I hold him personally responsible for the homeless problems we face today. These people are not poor, they are mentally incompetent and Reagan took away the only homes that were available to them. In my mind, at least, Ronald Reagan was a mean-spirited doddering fool playing a role. It’s good that he had a few intelligent minds around him; he needed them more than most. Nixon was almost as much of a megalomaniac as Bush is.

The belief that a President needs to be an accomplished administrator became outdated in the nineteenth century. Administration is something that you hire people to do. Presidents need all of their time to lead, to set a course, to build consensus, to figure out what to do. Barack Obama is proving himself to be equal to that task.

More tomorrow.