The Atlantic Monthly, which I have had a subscription to on and off since the 1980s, had an article recently entitled "How To Advance Civil Liberties without Blowing Up the Earth." The article's premise was very interesting, although it was hard to determine its subject because of the title.

In essence, the author said in an earlier article that because of Barack Obama's many civil liberty violations and other problems in governing, he will be voting for Mitt Romney. And he took issue with those who felt differently.

A final observation about that turn: A surprising number of partisan Democrats reacted to my piece by speculating that I must be a secret Republican operative, doing the bidding of Mitt Romney and the far right wing. Others insisted that my motive was Web traffic or flaunting my moral rectitude. It is one thing to argue that Obama is worth supporting despite his shortcomings. Given the gravity of those shortcomings, it is quite another to presume that anyone who disagrees must have clandestine motives. The inability to imagine non-cynical reasons for opposing Obama is itself a sad commentary on how little these issues mean to some of the president's most zealous partisan supporters.

As a former died in the wool liberal and Democrat, I found his premise interesting. But what was missing is what is missing in every analysis from every liberal. A complete rendition of what has been done by Obama to taint the presidency, diminish civil rights, and make the presidency into a Twenty-First Century Tweet and blog.

Although surely few of those still Democrats would agree, Obama's actions have made reelection the priority in a presidency so taken by history and the next term that his actions have failed to do anything that shows moral leadership or fulfillment of the promises he made. It is impossible to recount here all of his failings.

However, it does suffice to say what he has done and not done in the most important areas for the United States.

• He has failed to improve the lot of those he said needed help the most. Hispanics and African-Americans somehow remain wed to Obama despite his failure to bring up the Dream Act or any other provision, and his abject failure to improve the lot of African-Americans. In fact, Obama has made the lot of African-Americans worse. His treatment of Hispanics first deporting them in record numbers and then ending deportation for many was done entirely for political reasons.
• He increased the number of US soldiers in the Afghanistan War and actions against terrorists despite clear violations of the sovereignty of other countries and at best the unclear right to kill Americans without trial. He invaded Pakistan without warning and killed people in that country without any apparent effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Far from a great success, this was a horrendous loss in obtaining invaluable information for the future.
• He has abdicated the presidency in order to get more money for his campaign and to run for this upcoming election.
• He lied that he would be transparent when in fact concealing information and documents regarding Fast and Furious and now the death of a US ambassador in Libya.
• He lied that he would address big issues and not become mired in nasty personal attacks. His entire campaign, from claiming that Romney is a felon to his drumbeat of Romney being a liar, is as far from this as any in history. 
• He lied when he claimed he would try to work across the aisle. The argument that he can work with Republicans is completely destroyed by his history. He has not really tried.
• He is willing to give up anything, including freedom of speech, in favor of helping out his world view that there is no need to do other than apologize for such freedom.
• His performance in the first debate shows how weak he is and the lack of any vision at all. 

Sadly, none of these points is without comebacks. And in fact, as with his attack in 2008 on a rare publication daring to address the many issues raised by his admittedly partially untrue autobiographies, he is ruthless beyond the truth. It is far more useful to have his Democratic Party head pitching lies and then telling Anderson Cooper that it was fine to lie than to meet the truth.

Character assassination is more important than the truth to Obama, the master in same type of disinformation and distortions practiced by the old USSR and every other dictator. Remember what he said in 2007 or 2008, bragging about how tough he is on the campaign trail. He is from Chicago and is a master at Chicago-style politics.

What we find now is the most dangerous of all situations. It has little to do with the fact that he has 47% of the electorate in his pocket, or that he feels he is above governing, having some world view that we need to accept as reality.

We have a continuing horrendous future given our debt.

Sure, you can treat some reduction in unemployment as fake as that number is. Part-time or out of the workforce is the worst in history, and not improving.

Change is gone. Forward is new.

But there is no promise in "Forward."

Only Romney has the promise of Change, which Obama has abandoned.

Only Romney makes any sense.