R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I was fairly appalled to see the outcry over President Obama's speech to schoolchildren last week.

I'm not really a supporter of some of his policies.

But I *am* a supporter of the values he spoke about during that speech. And just as much, I'm a supporter of the idea of maintaining respect for the office of President. I want my children, when I have them, to grow up seeing the President as an honorable person - one who has achieved the position through the same hard work and perseverance that he was talking about, and one that has the best intentions for the nation at heart. I want my children to debate the ideas, and not simply attack and mistrust the person.

I don't want politics to become so ugly that we can't at least maintain some sense of idealism about the person that is, at least in theory, leading us all.