What do the following have in common?

• Using budget reconciliation
• Speaking to schoolchildren
• Schoolchildren sing songs about you
• Using TelePrompTers
• Having “Czars”
• Corporate bailouts
• Bowing to foreign royalty
• Prosecuting terrorists in civilian courts
• Interring terrorists in civilian prisons
• Reading terrorists their Miranda rights
• Criticizing specific media outlets for unfavorable coverage
• Not wearing a jacket or tie
• Not wearing a flag lapel pin
• Putting your feet up on your desk
• Not going to church all the time

If you guessed “things Obama has been criticized for,” you’d be correct, but incomplete. The full answer is, “things Obama is criticized for though other presidents were not.” Even more specifically, “things that Bush did to the same or a greater degree but no one noticed, but when Obama does them, the right wing goes berserk.”

This came to note recently when Obama was castigated by right-wingers for not doing anything to mark the anniversary of D-Day or the Normandy invasion. And it’s true, he didn’t. He marked the day last year, but didn’t this year. So, Obama is an ass, right?

As it happens, he’s doing exactly what every president does: he marks the occasion on special anniversaries, like last year when it was the 65th anniversary of D-Day, and like Bush did on the 60th anniversary. But Bush only observed D-Day twice in his eight years–in 2001 and in 2004, and nothing was made of it the other 6 years when he did nothing. When Obama followed suit this year, it’s a “snub,” and Obama is an insensitive cad, insulting veterans, America, and living up to his Hitler image.

The ODS (Obama Double Standard™) was also an issue recently when it was found that the Obama administration had offered a job to Joe Sestak to coax him from running against Arlen Spector; the right wing thought this was worthy of special investigation as if it were a major scandal, despite that kind of deal being an everyday occurrence in D.C. politics and there being nothing wrong with it. Similarly, Obama was castigated by the right wing for not going to Arlington on Memorial Day, despite the fact that presidents often don’t go.

Not to say that any of this is new, or a surprise. Just noting what others are noting about now, which is that Obama is being attacked for stuff which is done (or not done) all the time by presidents and nobody cares. It’s a double standard, it’s hypocritical, it’s dishonest, it’s stupid. In short, the right-wing SOP.