He Will Be Our President Too

Paul at Powerline reminds all of us on the right side to remember not to treat Obama the way the left treated Bush. Unlike many on the left, we will see Obama as OUR President too, because although we don't agree with him, he will be the leader of the free world. That means some stupid band can't go overseas and bash him on foreign soil. That's right, I'll get mad about that too, even it is about Obama. That means we won't want a moronic movie made distorting his words and denigrating him while he is in office. We won't give terrorists talking points to repeat on tapes given to news agencies.

Here are some excerpts:

Pray that President Obama achieves greatness in office. Our overriding concern must always be the country we love, not the success of a party or an ideology.

Be loyal in your opposition. As my blog partner Scott Johnson puts it, paraphrasing Steven Decatur: "May he always be in the right; but our president, right or wrong."

Don't hate.

Don't obsess.

Read the rest. Good advice. Because we don't want to fall into the same pit of hell the left did with Bush, always being critical and crude, never giving credit where credit is due, and spreading lies just to create a negative narrative.

Naturally Obama will do things we don't like. Our criticisms should be on issue and never personal. If he does things we like (like some of his appointments so far) then we need to give credit there.

It reminds me of what my 11 yr old said to me after Obama was elected. Every night we include Pres. Bush in our prayers. He asked me if we were going to include Obama when he became President. I said, of course! I told him we need to pray that Obama will do the right things. Keep in mind that my son thinks that Obama's stance on abortion is so unacceptable he can't comprehend how we could elected someone that doesn't understand the gift of life. How we could have elected someone who thinks it's ok to destroy unborn children. My son sees it in the most simple terms. Other issues can't really be explained to him. He also wouldn't care about them much. But babies he can relate to.

Anyway, I could see him wrestle with this thought of praying for Obama. I told him that Christ asked us to love even those who hate us, even our enemies. He said, "you are right. We will pray for him. Do you think we could just say, 'God bless our President?' and leave off his actual name? God will know who we are talking about after all. I just feel good when we pray and his name might depress me."

I had to laugh.

But it's true. An Obama Presidency might depress us, but we still need to stand strong on our principles, and we can do that without over the top rhetoric and mean ugly criticisms. We can pray for the best for our country.

h/t dave bones