SIX MONTHS - Barack Hussein Obama Jr. became president of the United States six months ago today. 

He delivered an inaugural address, not one word of which has been quoted in the six months since.  That followed a political campaign in which he delivered a speech on race, billed as the most important ever given by a presidential candidate, and not one word of which has been quoted afterward.

In the half year since inauguration, President Obama has given many, many speeches, all of which, save one, have been forgotten.  The one exception is the address he gave in Cairo to his brothers in the Muslim world, remembered only because so many observers pointed out so many factual errors.

We have learned much about Obama in these six months, and one thing we've learned is the same thing we eventually realized about another well-spoken Illinoisan, Adlai Stevenson, some half century ago - that there is about this man, underneath the golden words, a remarkable shallowness.  As a nation, we like him, but increasingly do not trust him.  We admire him as a personal role model for minority youngsters, but increasingly do not believe in his policies.  We enjoy him as a man, yet increasingly we are losing confidence in him as a leader.

On that bleak day in 1986 when Challenger exploded above Cape Canaveral, an ordinary citizen, reflecting on how President Reagan would respond, assured me, "He knows what to do."  Few use those words about President Obama.  After six months, we are unsure that "he knows what to do." 

And that is the tragedy.  A president who came to office with such promise has produced a foreign policy that projects apology and weakness, and which is achieving nothing.  A president who sought to transform his country, for better or worse, turned his legislative program over to a congressional leadership with a documented history of confusion and failure.  The clearest vision this administration has is a backward view - the insistence that every problem was caused by Mr. Obama's predecessor.

As Americans, we want each president to succeed, assuming we can agree with a president's definition of success.  Today we are watching a president fail, despite all the cheerleading from a press that has become a public embarrassment. 

That is not change we can believe in.  Unless there is improvement, a new maturity, a new competence, millions of Americans will seek to replace the government we have just put in place. 

Can we do it?  Yes we can.

July 20, 2009