Joseph Filko in his Sept. 12 column, bemoans the fact that President Barack Obama in his nearly four years as president has not led the nation on the path of hope and change envisioned in his 2008 campaign for the highest office in the land.

Instead, Filko says Obama has disillusioned the millions who originally supported him by his lack of leadership in failing to bring about his vision of hope and change.

Worse yet, in the current in-the-gutter presidential campaign, Filko implies that Obama’s main objective has been to wage class warfare by suggesting the wealthy pay a little more in taxes. Picking on the rich via unfair taxation is, of course, a long-running pet peeve of Filko’s.

Filko needs to do a reality check on Obama’s first term as president.

For openers, Obama was faced with an economy in free fall into the great recession — the deepest since President Franklin Roosevelt faced the Depression of the 1930s. His administration reacted with measures that most likely arrested the free fall and saved the auto industry.

And in the past two years, Obama has had to deal with the Republicans in Congress who after the 2010 election declared that defeating Obama in 2012 was their No. 1 objective.

They have been true to their promise by obstructing since 2010 any legislation that might strengthen the economy and thus benefit Obama in his bid for re-election.

The bottom line is that Obama would have had to have been a superleader to overcome the obstacles he faced and still effected his 2008 vision of hope and change.

For the sake of the nation, let’s hope Obama gets a better shake in his second term.

Ted Fuller Pine Grove Mills