How Should You Spell Respect? P-R-E-S-I-D-E-N-T

I generally try to avoid political topics and hot button issues here at Mommie Daze, because that’s just not what Mommie Daze is about. And because I don’t want to get embroiled in a commenting war, or have an in box full of hate mail from whatever left, right or upside down extremist interest group I offend.

But–

You knew there was a but coming didn’t you?

The latest controversy to hit the 24 hour cable news shows has me theorizing.

There’s this whole upheaval about whether or not President Obama should be allowed to address the nation’s school children. One side says yes he just wants to tell them, “Be Cool, Stay in School.” The other group says, “oh, no! He’s trying to indoctrinate them!”

Many pundits say this speaks to how divided our country is, nearly 50/50 down the middle when it comes to those who lean to the left and those who lean to the right. And this nasty fight over health care has made the chasm even wider.

But I say it speaks to something else.

Something greater, and perhaps more troubling, than our divided political views.

I think it speaks to the respect the Office of the President has lost.

We now know about Kennedy and his alleged affairs. Then there was Watergate. All stuff I’m too young to remember. So let’s look at what’s happened in the last two decades. Sans political decisions.

Consider the Clinton years when the president was carrying on with his intern in the Oval Office like they were teenagers parking in the backseat of a car. Then he lied to all of us about it for months, toyed with the definition of the word “is”, and got away with it.

Then there were the Bush years. Whether you supported Bush or not, you can’t deny that he just wasn’t that great of a public speaker. And his misspoken words — “Spatial Entrepreneurs”  What?  His words for astronaut — and often awkward public appearances did at times make him look like less than a genius. Maybe things he said were misunderstood, but I’m a good conservative and even I think he should have thought twice before saying things like, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”

Somewhere between the guy running 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. like it was a frat house, and the other one who couldn’t put three words together to make a sentence, the pedestal that those who held the highest office in the land once sat upon crumbled.

We lost respect for the individuals.

We lost respect for the office.

That loss of respect turned darker, into venom and even down right hatred in some cases.

There was a time that simply holding the title of President of the United States of America  was enough to garner respect. And it was an honor to hear the president speak. Even if we didn’t agree with his political positions. We would have thought nothing of him giving a speech to school children, because back then the president was above reproach. We would have all believed him to be a good role model. No one would have believed the president’s intentions were anything but good.

I don’t know President Obama’s true intentions. And I’ll leave it to you to decide if his speech is something you want your children to listen to or not.

I do think President Obama can help our country by restoring respect to the highest office in the land.

By being a leader we all can look up too, even if we don’t agree with him, by being above reproach, so there are no questions about his intentions.