Romney: Obama gets first-year F

President Obama has already awarded himself a B-plus for his first year in office, but Republican Mitt Romney said Tuesday he would give the president an F.

“Overall, I’m not going to give him a passing grade for the year,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “What this administration has done is added so much debt that it’s frightened the financial markets, it’s made it more difficult for small businesses to grow.

“The private sector is scared in America right now. It’s the most anti-job, anti-growth, anti-investment agenda we’ve seen in Washington in decades,” he said.

The former Massachusetts governor, who dropped out of the 2008 race for the GOP nomination shortly after Super Tuesday, also said the president should not try to pass his trillion-dollar health care reform plan without bipartisan support.

“The immediate reaction will be outrage on the part of the American people,” Mr. Romney said. “They have said every way they know how: They do not like his health care plan.”

Despite his criticisms of the president, Mr. Romney said Mr. Obama has done several things well, particularly when he has “changed his view from what he had during the campaign.”

“For instance, he’s left our troops in Iraq and they’re being more successful there, he boosted our effort in Afghanistan, which is the right course to take, he did not close Guantanamo, thank heavens,” Mr. Romney said.

His morning appearance started a day-long media blitz Tuesday to promote his new book, “No Apology: The Case of American Greatness.”

He also appears on ABC’s “The View” and Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” before wrapping up the day on CBS’s “Late Show With David Letterman.”

“We don’t need to apologize for what America is,” Mr. Romney said. “We have brought extraordinary economic wealth to people around the world, lifted people out of poverty, we’ve brought freedom to people around the world. But this country is under extraordinary stress right now. The challenges we face really could cause us to be passed by other nations. And Washington politicians have not dealt with the real challenges we face.”

Asked if he is a potential 2012 White House campaign, Mr. Romney said he would think about that after the 2010 mid-term elections.