I feel bad for President Obama.

There were just so many hopes and dreams put into the minds of the American people during his 2008 campaign. After a year, lots of those hopes and dreams have gone unrealized. From fixing the health care crisis to fixing the economy to fixing Afghanistan, on paper, it appears that Obama hasn’t been able to do much at all.

It’s not, however, entirely his fault. Although it seemed that he would be able to do whatever he promised because of his majority in both the House and Senate, politics isn’t that simple. Obama may have vowed to look past party lines and reach out to Republicans, but it’s impossible to compromise when the people you’re trying to compromise with aren’t giving anything back. Even within his own party, the Blue Dog Democrats’ fiscal conservatism and unwillingness to budge on the public option has been a hurdle for Obama. The incredible amount of opposition from all sides has left Obama in a very difficult situation.

Health care has proved to be the political downfall of the last two Democratic presidents. After his push for health care, Bill Clinton lost big and Obama may have lost big, too. Despite much public support, the public option was not passed due to heated opposition. Because Obama’s supporters have not been as vocal as his opponents, he has been forced to make many concessions on the bill. For example, Obama allowed the Hyde Amendment to pass, which is a gross violation of female reproductive rights. The bill lacks the teeth needed to actually make progress.

Similar to Obama’s progress on health care, it’s impossible to be completely happy with the stimulus package that was passed early on in the year. Some will argue that there was too much pork barrel spending; some will argue that there were too many useless tax breaks. Either way, the positive effects of the stimulus are not easily noticeable. Though in theory the economy has “improved”, the key factor that really affects most Americans– unemployment—has been largely unchanged. Companies are still not hiring and it’s putting a strain on everyone.

Aside from the war in Afghanistan and his immobility on Iraq, when it comes to foreign policy, Obama would have gotten an A+ if it weren’t for his botched visit to Asia. After Obama’s visit to Europe, America finally seemed to be turning around its image. Unfortunately, when it came to what is arguably the most important country, China, Obama really goofed. Displaying none of the charm of his trip to Europe– where he came off as a superstar– Obama didn’t play basketball with Yao Ming or earn props with the Chinese public by eating ethnic food; he just made a lot of concessions to Hu Jintao and perpetuated fears that we are still hopelessly indebted to the Chinese.

As a student, the situation can be frustrating. If this is the way that it’s going to be for the next three years, graduation will not be kind. Many graduates will enter an economy that is only half-healed and look for jobs that are difficult to find. They will enter the real world with fears about how they will pay for the doctor if they get sick. They will worry about the fact that they probably can’t win the war in Afghanistan that their tax dollars pay for.

At the end of the day, although the sheen of “Yes We Can” has worn off a little bit, President Obama still has great ideas. Executing them will be hard and now that he’s no longer in that initial honeymoon phase, it will only get harder. Hopefully, he will have more to show for it this time next year.

Most performance reviews, report cards, evaluations, and the like give either a series of qualifications that the recipient is expected to meet or a few words about the recipient. I’m just going to start with the grade. I’m giving Barack Obama a big fat F.

Barack Obama supposedly ran on a platform of change. And while change is fine, I expected Barack to respect the Constitution and evaluate each change for constitutionality. This is only fair, seeing as he’s a constitutional law professor and all. But his health care plan has completely violated the Constitution by explicitly telling citizens how to spend their money. (Detractors might say that it’s not in the Constitution, but that’s the point: if policy like how people spend money isn’t in the Constitution, the federal government can’t go around telling individuals how to do that; policy like that is left for the states, or hopefully to the individuals themselves). So for starters, he went and violated the laws of the Constitution.

Secondly, he wasted a political majority. I got pretty worried at the start of his term because the House and Senate were painted a nice color of blue. But that didn’t matter too much, as the party center tried to ram through every bit of legislation they could find, and the House and Senate couldn’t swallow it all. It got to the point where Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had to start bribing and browbeating their own party members into voting for the health care bill, even though most of the party members were merely being mindful of their district’s wishes (which we all know is total bogus, because who cares what the American people think, anyways?), and as a result, they will probably lose when their seats come up for reelection. Let’s think of all the grand things that Obama wanted to do: He wanted to fix the economy, radically change healthcare, revamp education, end the war in Iraq, decommission Guantanamo, and improve relations with other countries. So far what he has done with his majority is drag Congress into a health care squabble, fail to end the Iraq war, and keep the economy handicapped by billions in wasted stimulus money and regulations.

Purely on an academic level, in order to achieve an A, you must get at least 90% of your answers correct, or your goals achieved. Most teachers (before our school system became obsessed with grades and not learning) would give a student that completed zero out of six tasks an F (but with grade inflation he would still end up with a B). So let’s assess Barack on his agenda:

Fixing the Economy: I still see tons of companies in financial trouble, and buoying failed companies that are “too big to fail” doesn’t count as jump-starting the economy. Failed.

Health Care: I don’t know how Barack plans to make paying higher premiums plus higher taxes on government-run programs cheaper for low-income families. Failed.

Middle East: Not only did he not end the war in Iraq, but he also sent more troops to Afghanistan. One of the things he was big on during his campaign was removing troops from Iraq. He wanted to bring our troops home. He flat out lied to the country on this matter (sound like anyone else we know?). It sounds better when Obama says that he analyzed the situation and found his initial plans unfeasible, but what he’s actually doing is recognizing the fact that he said one thing and is doing another. Failed.

Revamp Education: The closest Washington came to improving education was when local officials in D.C. started a voucher program. Then the federal government shut it down. Thousands of inner-city kids who had a shot at a better education just lost their chance. Failed.

Decommission Guantanamo: He wanted to sign the order day after his inauguration. We’re still shipping people out of Gitmo, and supposedly the detainees who got released are starting problems in Yemen. Failed.

Improve foreign relations: Seeing as how we’ve spent so much time trying to demilitarize Iran’s nuclear power, it would be nice to see some progress, but alack and alas, Iran refuses to budge. Russia is becoming militant again and infringing upon the borders of a democratic country, and we’re just standing idly by briefly admonishing them. If Obama thinks he can negotiate with people who are clearly unwilling to negotiate, he is either crazy, or a miracle worker. Failed.

Now, aside from looking objectively, I’m going to add in a few of my own notes. Obama promised transparency in government, so instead of openly asking for senator’s approval, he used Nancy Pelosi and other campaign bulldogs to bully deciding votes off the floor of the House and Senate. I also think that he’s been very vague on key issues, and I’m already starting to tire of his vague rhetoric. On subjects like Israel, he throws out the key phrases like “peace” and “cease-fire” but he doesn’t really use them in any concrete way. He’s supposed to be a political outsider, but he’s got a knack for construing his opinions behind a hedge maze of useless junk. America needs clarity more than ever, needs Obama to thin out his speeches and just get to the point. He needs to stop doing what he thinks is right and start doing what the American people actually want, like lower taxes and strip away these giant mountains of stimulus that haven’t actually done anything. If Obama’s done so much in his first year, hopefully he’ll be able to make it all better in the second year. It’s probably not going to happen, but one can always hope.