I am outraged because, on Aug. 10, out of the mouth of President Barack Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, I have been accused of being a member of the “professional left,” who should be “drug tested” and who wouldn’t be satisfied even if Dennis Kucinich were president.

For the record, I worked my bottom off for Obama. I spent hours making phone calls and canvassing because I believed, naively, that Obama would be different from his predecessor.

And I believed that, not because that was what I wanted, but because Obama himself pledged to end torture and to restore the rule of law to the so-called “war on terror.” He also pledged to end the Iraq war, but never said anything about continuing a useless war in Afghanistan where, last month, more American soldiers were killed than ever before.

So pardon me if I don’t bow down in loyalty to this Obama, a president who has not fulfilled the promises he made and has gone back on many of them. I am not a member of the “professional left,” whatever that is. But Obama has turned out to be a member of the “professional politicians.” Sad.

I’m just a long-time liberal Democrat who hoped that my candidate, a constitutional scholar himself, would restore constitutional rule in the United States as he promised to do, and would govern differently and better than his predecessor.

He has done neither.

I still like Obama the man, but not Obama the president.

Paul Macri, Auburn