I’ve been out in California a few days and I’m constantly hearing people ask: “Why doesn’t the Right ever give President Obama a break?”  What they mean is that literally every day the hosts of Fox News, the Drudge Report, and bloggers on your side of the fence find some new nitpicking complaint to file.

As I was leaving for an event last night, a debate was occurring on cable about whether the President should have accepted a book from Hugo Chavez (that turned out to be about United States exploitation in Latin America) and then shaken his hand?  What should he have done when a world leader hands him something, the contents of which are not even known?  Throw it on the floor?  Spit on the giver?  This would be laughable criticism if it wasn’t part of an incessantly repeating pattern.

Last week, conservatives were upset that the President “took too much credit” for ending the Somali hostage incident.  Too much credit would have been holding a press conference on a naval vessel with a parrot on your shoulder and a banner reading “Pirate Mission Accomplished” overhead.  The President merely explained what decisions he made and commended the bravery of all involved.

And the litany goes on: every health care initiative is “socialized medicine;” every effort to raise a tax or a user fee is “socialism” itself.  Picking a non-rescue dog becomes a breach of faith with the country; Michelle Obamas’s make-up artist was the cause of screeds on overspending.

Here’s
my question. It is a religious one as much as a political one. Everyone
expects that on policy matters people will criticize the President when
he does or doesn’t do what they want.  (I have done this myself,
including on this blog site.)  However, when the issue seems trivial or
it is just a matter of “style,” shouldn’t Christians at least hold
their tongue and show some modicum of respect for the office of the
Presidency and the man himself–at least when he has not even been in
office for 100 days?  

Please, Jay, tell your friends to take a breath occasionally before they send up the ICBMs.

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