Most anyone who knows me knows that I am more or less apolitical. I hate political debates because they are always fraught with hypocrisy. I maintain that it is nearly impossible to be fervent about any political issue without lapsing into some sort of rank hypocrisy. Just for instance, one party screams at the top of their lungs that abortion must be stopped no matter what! The same party doesn’t tend to do very much for those would be aborted babies once they get here, thus often dooming them to a life of abuse and poverty. Am I pro-Choice then? No. I’m not pro-Life either because this world isn’t black ink on white paper. Another political party wants to raise taxes astronomically. What’s the hypocrisy in that? Most politicians within the Beltway are rich. Taxes don’t hurt rich people as much as they hurt poor people simply because rich people have more money to pay taxes with. Oh, and don’t bother trying to explain the tax code to me and how it’s a sliding scale because unless you are a tax attorney with the IRS, you don’t know a bit more than I do.

Now, I pointed all that out to say this. People around here have been as riled up as sore tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs about President Obama’s speech to students. “He’s trying to indoctrinate our children!” is one battlecry I heard a lot this weekend. Well, if you think his speech is aimed at indoctrination, you either didn’t read the speech I read OR you have the reading comprehension level of a botfly or a politician. The fact is, President Obama’s speech was inspiring and nonpartisan. The reason behind the attacks, dismay and handwringing is the fact that a certain segment of people in this country will hate ANYTHING President Obama does. He could hand out gold bars to every man, woman, and child in America and people would still castigate him. I have even heard some people, who I feel are usually rational, state that they believe President Obama is the Antichrist. It was the same with President Bush. In the minds of a certain segment of the population, George W. Bush was the Antichrist and nothing he could ever do would change that.

I remember when the Iraq War started and half the people in the country went ape-poop over it. President Bush’s supporters wagged their self-righteous fingers in those people’s faces and said, “He is our President and we MUST support him no matter what our PERSONAL feelings may be because the office of President deserves our respect.” Okay, so what changed back in January 2009 when President Obama was sworn in? Suddenly the office of President no longer deserves respect because “your man” isn’t occupying the Oval Office? I’m sorry, but that is the rankest, most odious brand of hypocrisy of all. It reeks of doublespeak and insincerity.

I believe every man (and eventually woman) who occupies the Oval Office leaves behind something positive of note . . . with the possible exception of Millard Filmore. For example, people have vilified President Nixon for thirty years now because of Watergate and quite rightly so, BUT he did open up China to the US again and he did go a long way towards getting our boys home from Vietnam. Others have blasted President Carter for being a “failed Presidency” but he brokered a peace between Israel and Egypt that has held to this day. What it comes down to is trying. Every President has TRIED to make this country better acting on the light that he (for now) possessed. I am a student of history and I defy anyone anywhere to point out ONE, just ONE of the men who have held the office of POTUS who came into the office with the agenda of making our country worse.

I would not have the job of POTUS if someone held a gun to my head. How would you like to get up in the morning knowing that around 40 to 60% of the people in the country HATE YOUR GUTS at any given moment? Not me. I’ve liked all the Presidents that have been in office since I was old enough to understand who the President was. I haven’t always agreed with everything they did, but I respected the fact that they were at least trying and in the end, that’s all any of us can do. If the heads of the DNC and the RNC would be honest, if Jesus Christ Himself came back to Earth and ran for President as a Republican, the Democrats would sling as much mud on Him as they could to try to defeat Him, and if He ran on the Democratic ticket, the Republican Convention would be dead in after Him as well. You simply cannot please everyone or even a majority and it is complete folly for a man with the responsibility of the President to even try.

President Obama is going to do the best he can do for as long as he is in office just like President Bush, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, et al tried to do when they were on the hot seat. He will make huge mistakes. He may or may not make impressive gains, but he will TRY. That’s one thing his speech was about — TRYING YOUR BEST. If he’s willing to try so hard in the face of such hatred by some and apathy by others, the least we can do is give him the benefit of the doubt, and you know what? If John McCain had won, I’d say the same thing.

Barak Obama is my President and he deserves my support. If you, for whatever reason, refuse to support the man, you are duty bound as an American to support the office.

Unless you want to be a dirty footed hypocrite.