I just had a friend send me an ultra-right-wing conservative e-mail about President Obama. Whoever oiginated the e-mail is obviously not a fan but what really irritated me is that the article (written by a New York "commentator") was picked up off the Canadian Press (something like the U.S.'s AP) and then attributed to Canada. It refers to the "Canadian insight" about Obama. This friend of mine sent it to me and it's simply a rant about how terrible Obama is and I blew. I e-mailed him back and said "God, the man's only been in office for 8 months!" George Dubbya had 8 years and look where he left the U.S.

I won't go into the issues but what really burns me is that, after 8 months, people are already calling Obama names and saying that he doesn't know what he's doing. That may be true but 8 months in office as the President of the United States is, in my book, just barely getting your feet wet.

What on earth do people expect? Unless you're a total doofus, you get that long to learn the basics of waiting tables or slinging beer or running an office.

There seems to be a real tendency these days to want to cut people down. It's not just the big players - people are impatient and demanding in all aspects of their lives and when they don't get what they want when they want it, they're downright rude and ignorant.

I really don't have an opinion about Obama one way or the other but, come on people! I'd love for all these criticizers to take on the job for a year. What a scary thought!

We should all stop armchair-quarterbacking and give people some slack. We're all only human and this tendency for people to bitch for the sake of bitching is getting old.