I live in region where there is little love for Obama.

Some people tune in to a ton of FOX News or something to that effect, and their opinions are shaped by different information than the information I absorb from such sources as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," MS-NBC, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, NORML, the BBC, the New York Times, and a liberal education in English literature and upbringing as the son of two college professors.

Today I drank beer with a kind, gentle, generous man who told me Obama was a f***-up and wasn't a Christian. At the same time, the man celebrates my marriage to my husband and supports the rights of gays to marry and clearly has no problem with gays at all. What am I to say? I am a liberal Democrat, but I said nothing, and accepted the check that was written to my name for technical support rendered, like the wise man I reckon and hope I am.

Each man is entitled to his own opinion, and I have no reason to preach to the unconverted, least of all customers of mine that pay me good coin and treat me well and respect me as a human being. The world would be a better place if we all adopted a "live-and-let-live" attitude. More flies go for honey than vinegar.

My dear, dead friend, who I wrote about here, the dear woman, was a Republican and also believed as that man did, that Obama was wrong, but that gays were okay.

I am not entirely sure I'm a good judge of a politician. I don't keep up with politics simply because I don't have the time. I work just about all the time. I like Obama because he made nice noises about gay marriage, is for health insurance for the poor, is for higher minimum wage, and recognizes global warming is a threat to human existence. I dislike Obama because he was timid about marijuana, timid about gay rights, and his health policy was too complicated. Look, health care is a great idea. But our system pales before Canada's or England's. I think Obama did a good job with the cards he was dealt, a B+ perhaps. I guess I wish he had something akin to magic, something that would make people like that gentle man I spoke with this evening stand up and take notice. Charisma, but also something more, strategic vision, like Napoleon I guess, a killer instinct so rare in our species. Yet Napoleon, he too failed, did he not, with his silly march on Russia? Where is perfection found? Nowhere. Not even in our beloved Spartacus. We are humans, it seems. We stutter. We forget. We dribble. We don't know everything. Well, at least we're a bit evolved from primates.