Obama: The Moving Target

President Barack Obama has been in office for a little over eight months.

While browsing through some news stories at my desk today, I caught wind that President Obama has recently upset many a conservative, one whom appears to be Tammy Bruce.

After Obama gave a back-to-school speech challenging students to work hard in class and take responsibility for their education, Bruce pounced on the president's remarks.

The radio talk show host said, "Make September 8 Parentally Approved Skip Day. You are your child's moral tutor, not that shady lawyer from Chicago."

Bruce's choice of words, "shady lawyer from Chicago," rubbed me the wrong way.

They sounded coded.

Besides, when is the last time one can remember someone calling the President of the United States a "shady lawyer"?

Now, there may have been some presidents here and there who perhaps fit that description. Yet, I cannot recall a time when someone actually insulted a president with such vitriol, specifically a president who has not even assumed office for an entire year.

When George W. Bush first entered the White House as president in 2000, many people debated the legitimacy of his victory. Many were disappointed in seeing their candidate, Al Gore, lose to President Bush. Nonetheless, virtually every American came together in the end and was willing to stand behind their new president. In time, Bush made mistakes, as every president does. But -- to put things in charitable terms -- Bush's blunders were more pronounced than many of his predecessors.

By the end of the Bush presidency, the American people had grown tired, tired of Bush's style of leadership and his policies. Still, when "Dubya" was in the White House, I recall fewer Americans launching attacks on his character, however distasteful his decisions seemed during his early days in office.

For President Obama, though, the reverse is obstensibly true.

Everywhere he goes, he's a moving target.

He's too liberal. He's a socialist. He's a Muslim (as if his religion prevents him from upholding the law as written in the U.S. Constitution). Speaking of religion, some wacko pastor in Arizona thought it not strange to pray for Obama's demise.

What Bible is he reading from?

Now I'm not making the president out to be some kind of angel, because I personally don't agree with every item included on his agenda. Who does? Be that as it may, my better sensibilities suspect that those who would assign such misnomers to the president really want to say something else.

Let's call a spade a spade.

Meanwhile, another commentator, Michelle Malkin, mentioned that Obama's speech, in which he also suggested students write letters to themselves, contained a "heavy activist bent." The word "activist" is loaded with its connotations (and in this case, I believe Malkin intended for them to be pejorative)! The modern use of the word is typically given to grassroots organizers, soapbox preachers, protest leaders. Traces of these influences may be part of Obama's makeup, but he is most certainly not an activist.

He's the President of the United States.

Malkin's comments reminded me of the time when Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Primary.

During that time, President Bill Clinton attempted to downplay Obama's election victory that night by comparing him to Jesse Jackson.

"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88," said Clinton at a rally in the state's capitol. "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

So, perhaps I should note the progress. At least the President is no longer being compared to Jesse Jackson.

Also, people are no longer calling Obama "boy," as one Republican congressman did during last year's campaign. Neither are they calling him "that one," as Senator McCain infamously did during a televised debate last year.

Still, the president has only been in office for eight months and some change.

I dare not imagine some of the other names people might hurl at him for the next three and a quarter years he has remaining.