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I don’t care what you say, Timothy Dalton was a great James Bond.

As I watched Obama’s – let’s face it – boring speech at the Democratic National Convention, the same thought kept running through my mind. Is Obama George Lazenby? Or is he Timothy Dalton?

We all know that Obama’s been a bit crap. Even Obama’s most googly-eyed fanboys know this, deep down in their bleeding liberal hearts. After all, what demographic has Obama not let down in some way? The selectively racist, pro-drone, anti-war, gay demographic that likes a bit of healthcare (but not too much) and a bit of change (but not too much)? Sizable though this demographic surely is, polling indicates that it tends to get confused and vote for Ron Paul. So, no joy for Obama there.

Still, there are two theories about Obama’s crapness. The George Lazenby theory states that, like the ill-fated second James Bond, Obama was given an amazing opportunity but blew it due to arrogance, naiveté and lack of actual talent. Against this, the Timothy Dalton theory contends that Obama is massively underrated, and was simply unfortunate to arrive during the franchise’s creative nadir. Obama/Dalton actually is, or at least could have been, one of the best Presidents/007s, the best since JFK/Connery (perhaps – just quietly – even better), but had to do his best with poor scripts, boring co-stars, general antipathy, and a producer with a pathological need to end every fucking film with a stupendous series of utterly gratuitous explosions.

But the whole point of Obama was that he would change all that. In fact, that was literally his only platform – at least, the only one people cared about – and he failed. Yes, he failed because there was a lack of political will behind him, but the idea was that he would create this will by inspiring people, and he didn’t. Instead he alienated his supporters by dithering early on, trying to reach out to intransigent Republicans in a piece of pure electric fence-grabbing optimism. Dalton wasn’t to blame for The Living Daylights’ manic pacing and idiotic second half, or for the total shambles that was License to Kill, but Obama, like Lazenby, gave a bad performance and deserves his poor reviews.

At the DNC, Obama gave himself a grade of “incomplete.” As numerous crestfallen first-years have discovered, when I mark an incomplete essay I usually give it a D (#whoisCreepyUncleSam?). The twin highs of Obama’s presidency have been repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and offing Osama bin Laden. Indeed, those are the only two times in his entire term in which Obama has actually inspired people: one a symbolic but largely cosmetic change, the other an extra-judicial revenge killing. Depressing.