If I were grading President Obama...

With the end of the school year, students recently received their grades. If President Barack Obama were my student, I'd give him a "C" for average, for having the opportunity to carve out a magnificent progressive legacy and then choosing to dilute it instead, for going to the do-no-change center too often, for being Clintonesque, for mythically thinking consensus-building works when you are dealing with people so far to the right that your neck is likely to twist to an angle reminiscent of the demon-possessed daughter in the movie "The Exorcist."

Here's how my grading system is based:

1). Obama is the first African-American president. An "A" for that and the excitement that the American electorate can choose someone other than a white, old, rich guy.

2). Obama campaigns as a progressive liberal. An "A" for that. More excitement. Maybe the old status quo can change, after all. But wait. Obama fills his Cabinet with Clinton people and heads to the political center. An "F" for: Been there, done that, no real progress.

3). And the issues...Two wars. Though Obama inherited two wars, he still has pretty much the same lousy generals who apparently can't win them. The wars have become the longest in American history. WWII was shorter. Generals after WWII sure have been poor. What's wrong with the military leadership training? Democrats have to realize that some of us progressives have never voted for a war president ever and don't intend to in 2012. Thus, it is paramount that Obama end the costly wars, rather than increase troop deployment and lengthen the list of the American war dead. An "F" for ongoing wars.

4). Health care reform. Wow, Obama had the chance to do something amazing here, but caved in on the public option possibility. It is good that more people are covered by health insurance, though the insurance companies are still pretty much in charge of costs and profits. An "A" if there'd been a public option plan. The "C" here stands for caving for convenience.

5). Guantanamo Bay prison. Still not closed and that's gone beyond his first-year promise. An "F" there.

6). Worldwide view of America. Definitely this one is a bright part of the Obama presidency and the replacement of Bush. Much improvement. An "A" for change the world can believe in.

7). End to discriminatory practices. One that comes to mind is the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that is discriminatory toward gay soldiers. So, how does the first racial minority president--the second minority president if we count FDR in terms of his wheelchair disability--do in tackling discrimination toward others? Not so good. Here again, Obama is leaving it up to the generals. Yes, those same incompetents who can't win wars. The Obama administration wants to wait for the generals. Or maybe it's waiting for Godot. A "D" for good talk, just no action.

8). Supreme Court selection. A high mark for Obama's selection of Sonia Sotomayer. As the first Hispanic member of the Court, another legacy moment was attained. An "A" for that. For his second selection of Elena Kagan, the jury is still out. Obama missed his chance to select a solidly liberal justice. He still has a majority in the Senate, so why didn't he go for it? That old mythical dilution quality of "consensus-building" and "go to the center" makes for more "C" words with average intentions. Why didn't he choose a liberal African-American man or woman to offset the conservative Clarence Thomas? Why didn't he choose a Protestant, so the Court wouldn't be, for the first time in its history, without a Protestant justice? No Protestant is counter to diversity. And, yes, religion does matter, because it represents thought and stance. With Kagan, that would mean the Court consists of six Catholics and three Jews. That's not representative of the nation.

9). Off-Shore Oil-Drilling. Oh, wow! Here's where Obama could have stayed with his environmentalist base on higher ground and oil-free water, but chose again to retreat to the center. The oil leak by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing disastrously at, so far, 3.5 million gallons of oil and no end in sight. Hey, I am not a rocket scientist, but I kind of think that if there's no solution for plugging up an oil leak in the middle of an ocean, then it's probably not a good idea to drill there in the first place. The Obama administration says it is considering a reversal in its support of off-shore oil-drilling. Really? So, pelicans might mean more than campaign donations, after all. And when will the administration decide? A "C" for can't stop loving oil. (An "F" for my lack of faith now that the administration will do the right thing on this issue.)

10). Wind energy development. The Obama administration does seem progressive on advancing alternative energy development. A "B" there, maybe a "C," because Obama also endorsed nuclear energy, which could be worse than oil-leaky catastrophic.

11). Obama probably had no choice when it came to bailing-out Wall Street after the greedy non-regulation of the Clinton and Bush years. The question is: Are the banking regulations back in place to prevent the problem from happening again? An "I" for incomplete on this grade.

12). Jobs. Probably the most important of the long-term issues on this list. The stimulus money has helped, but Obama has been too timid in job-creation ideas. FDR had a legacy of lifting people out of unemployment and economic despair. I don't think Obama has that legacy yet. Guess that means a "C" for average again.

So, what's the grade for President Obama, a year and a half into his presidency? My averaging may be off, but "C" seems like it makes sense to date. Definitely, the shine of the prospects of finally getting a liberal president who knows how to achieve progressive goals has faded.

How does Obama improve his grade? Well, he needs to stay with the views of the people (the progressives) who took him to the White House in the first place. The center is not a wise suppport mechanism for enthusiasm at the voting booth.