Listening to President Obama's speech before the United Nations General Assembly, it was hard not to wonder if and when we are going to wise up as an electorate.  In the next cycle and beyond, will we apply a different standard given that the current and prior President have failed so miserably in living up to their campaign rhetoric?

Remember the haughty manner in which candidate Obama dressed down George Bush for his inability to get foreign leaders to cooperate? 

Fast forward twelve months or so and there's the President imploring recalcitrant U.N. member states to step up because "this cannot solely be America's endeavor."

Unfortunately, despite candidate Obama doing everything, including issuing Joe Namath-like guarantees that things would be different this time, they are not different.  America continues to stand virtually alone.

Recall how relatively easy it was going to be to secure the support of Russia and China in winning new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran?

Weren't Middle East peace talks supposed to go just swimmingly?

And, how about the war in Afghanistan?  Wasn't a flood of international support going to come pouring in?

Of course, it's been more of the same on the domestic front.  The supposed post-partisan utopia—a world in which previously intractable problems would be knocked down one after another—has proven to be nothing more than a wild chimera.

George Bush was no better.  In fact, it can be argued that he was worse.  We should have seen through Obama's smoke screen.  The words, after all, were 100% inconsistent with his track record.  But, we were smitten.  Love would conquer all.

Bush, on the other hand, appeared to be a somewhat known quantity.  He, we were told, and the record (thin as it was) seemed to indicate, was a limited government conservative.  He was against nation building.  He wanted to restrain spending and reduce the deficit.  He would trim, not expand, entitlement spending.

Yeah, right.

So, now what?  We've clearly been duped time and again.

Common sense, maybe?  Some basic guidelines?

Perhaps we can start tuning out campaign oratory.  It's little more than fiction.  Let's apply considerably more weight to records of actual achievement, instead of empty speeches before the Rotary Club.  Governing, it turns out, is quite more challenging than speechifying.  Accountability has a way of changing the dynamic (see Iraq, Guantanamo, and Afghanistan).

Maybe we can also agree that hard stuff is not going to magically stop being hard.  As such, we should pay particular attention to the candidates' history (or lack thereof) of solving difficult problems, instead of their "sincere" assurances that they'll make it right.

Perchance, we might also recognize that inarticulate, bomb-throwing fools don't suddenly become Cicero's or Henry Clay's (see Sarah Palin).

Could it also be a good idea to be extra wary of weak resumes and/or those who've suddenly emerged on the national scene (see Carter, Bush, and Obama)?

Let's get back to basics...and not be fooled again.