In 2000 after the Supreme Court appointed Bush President many on the left were upset and cried foul. They felt the election was stolen by a Bush friendly court. They didn't think Bush was a legitimate President. On the right they screamed "stop the vote!" as they demanded the recount end. For the first part of 2001 conservatives and right wingers spent most of their time trying to legitimize the Bush Presidency. "We must respect the office of the Presidency" became a mainstay among conservatives.

After 9/11 we were told we all had to support our President. If we didn't we were un-American and unpatriotic. We may not like the man Bush but we had to respect the office of the Presidency. This meme carried for the rest of Bush's Presidency. If you criticized Bush or the wars you were called unpatriotic and accused of committing treason.

Flash forward to 2009 and the very same people who told us we had to respect the office of the Presidency unconditionally are many of the same people who now trash Obama on a daily basis. But it's not just normal trashing. If someone disagrees with Obama's policies go ahead and have at. I don't agree with what Obama's doing most of the time. Problem is people on the right think he is too liberal and I think he is too conservative.

But they don't attack him from the traditional political point of view - going after specific policies they think are wrong. Instead they attack him and accuse him of being a secret Muslim. Or they accuse him of secretly trying to remake the United States into a communist country. They justify all of the hateful attacks against Obama by in their minds telling themselves he has no right to be President - because they claim he is not a U.S. citizen. So, in other words, all bets are off. They don't have to respect the office of the Presidency and they can say whatever they want about Obama without the risk of being unpatriotic.

They've even gone so far now as to Pray for Obama. Now you might think at first "that's really nice, they are praying for Obama". Well, it's now what you think. The latest tea bagger/birther/tenther craze is to put a "Pray For Obama Psalm 109:8" bumper sticker on their car. For the secular public not familiar with the Bible it might seem like a nice idea. But Psalm 109.8 is considered an imprecatory prayer where you are praying for God to kill you enemies.

It's interesting to me that the right wing pundits and media are able to turn on a dime like this. They can go from demanding we all respect the President or be labeled unpatriotic - to fomenting rabid hatred for the President that is resulting in people now praying for his death. They are able to simply swap out any flavor of kool-aid at any time and the faithful keep on drinking it without a notice or a care about the hypocrisy. It all tasks like cherry kool-aid to them as long as it is coming out of a pitcher from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, or Rush Limbaugh. It could be grape kool-aid in reality but they can't tell the difference or chose not to for propaganda purposes.

This is why the whole birther thing bugs me and I wish there was a way to prove categorically to all the wingnuts that Obama is indeed a U.S. citizen. Problem is they will never believe any proof that is provided. They have already rejected the birth certificates, local newspaper accounts, and government officials from Hawaii saying the birth certificate is real. So even if Obama were to produce some sort of document no matter what it was the birthers would claim it was fake.

But the whole problem is their whole house of cards is built on the premise that Obama is not a U.S. citizen and therefore not the President of the United States. This in their minds gives them license to say anything they want about Obama - even praying for his death - without the slightest care about whether or not their behavior is unpatriotic. If it were possible to remove this weak link their whole world would come crashing down and people would see them for the hateful unpatriotic anti-American assholes that they really are. Instead for now they get to hide behind the birther cloak being held up by Orly Taitz.

Some other hatred in the news:

Obama Billboard In Colo. Asks: President Or Jihad