By Aaron Ross (C'11),

Barack Obama had me at "no" to the gas tax holiday.

It's true I'd voted for him two months earlier in the New Jersey primary. My rationale at the time seemed sensible enough. Obama had opposed the Iraq war. He called for dialogue with America's adversaries. He wasn't a Clinton or a Bush. And yes, he would be the country's first black president if elected.

But when he dismissed John McCain and Hillary Clinton's call for a gas tax holiday in April 2008 as a cheap political gimmick, I really started to get behind the guy. Here was a politician, who if not immune to occasional pandering, followed common sense (and the expertise of every reputable economist in the country). An intellectual, who if at times too eager to compromise on policy, would at least treat facts as facts, and trust the American people to recognize that.

Silly me.

The evidence of my folly started piling up almost as soon as Obama took the oath of office. The most dramatic examples have concerned his campaign pledges to start prosecuting the war on terror, you know, legally--i.e. restoring habeas corpus and ending wireless wiretaps. Extraordinary rendition, the grotesque Bush-era practice of sending terror suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, has continued as well.

The recent forced resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod after she was savagely smeared as a racist by FOXNews and conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart is, if not the most consequential, then surely the most egregious of Obama's retreats from the "common sense" approach to governance he promised during the campaign.

As it turns out, Sherrod is no racist but exactly the kind of person you would want in public service. Her “racist comments,” edited from a 43 minute speech into a seemingly damning two-and-a-half minute clip by Breitbart, were in fact part of rather inspiring tale of racial reconciliation with a white farmer in Georgia, whose farm she helped save over a quarter-century ago. The NAACP, which fell all over itself to condemn her supposedly contemptible remarks on Monday is now urging Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to rehire Sherrod, a call even Glen Beck echoed last night.

The White House, however, is sticking by its guns. On Tuesday, it announced that the president had been briefed on the situation and “fully supported” Vilsack’s decision, for which the Agriculture Secretary offered this half-baked explanation: “For the past 18 months, we have been working to turn the page on the sordid civil rights record at USDA and this controversy could make it more difficult to move forward on correcting injustices.” After outcry over the decision yesterday, Vilsack today said he is now reconsidering the matter.

The bottom line remains the same: a government official’s tale of personal growth and racial redemption gets spun by a bunch of right-wing hacks and the Obama administration capitulates like a scrawny schoolchild to the class bully. How about a “teachable moment” here, Mr. President? If you could trust the American people to understand the folly of a temporary suspension of the gas tax, can you really not trust them to see through this most shameless example of race-baiting?

Unlike many my age, I wasn't left weak at the knees during the ’08 election by visions of hope and change. Unlike many liberals, I didn't expect the dawn of a new New Deal. All I wanted was a president who might just call out a faux racism allegation for the load of crap it is.

I guess that was too much to ask for.