Obama has betrayed a lack of substance. When he was more mysterious, Obama encouraged our belief that there was subterranean depth beneath the gleaming surface. Just give the man some time and out will come the magic. It turned out that vacuous speeches on hope and change were not the thin veneer that concealed great complexity but the very substance itself. I have yet to hear one truly new or exciting idea from Barack Obama since becoming president.

President George W. Bush was dismissed as a lightweight. But love it or hate it, the Bush doctrine of pre-emption and its corollary of exporting democracy to recalcitrant states was a compelling and divisive idea that invited ferocious debate. With Obama we are back to the tired, yawn-inducing discussions of big versus limited government and whether Keynesian stimulus spending or reducing the national debt is the best way to kindle the economy. I’m bored.