Disgraceful sentiment

We knew this would happen. A few days ago, the ring wing media echo chamber was up in arms because the President didn't "properly" salute as he was exiting Marine One. The photo of it shows that he's holding a cup of coffee and gives a rather perfunctory salute with coffee in hand:

This outrage obviously prompted Paul Diggs of Oklahoma City to write:

I’ve never been more disappointed in our commander in chief than I am now. I refer to the terrible lack of respect shown by Barack Obama when exiting Marine One and 'saluting' the Marine guard with a coffee cup in his right hand. This is a disgrace! I proudly served this country for 28 years active duty. Obama’s behavior is unacceptable to all veterans. Saluting is an important part of military customs. As the Marine guard renders the salute to his commander in chief, it’s expected that a sharp salute would be given in return.

Really? First off, let's see what the military says here:

Salutes are not required when—
• Indoors, except when reporting to an officer or when on duty as a guard.
• Addressing a prisoner.
• Saluting is obviously inappropriate. In these cases, only greetings are exchanged. (Example 1: A person carrying articles with both hands, or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impracticable, is not required to salute a senior person or return the salute to a subordinate.)
• Either the senior or the subordinate is wearing civilian clothes.

So, given that a) Obama had a jacket in one hand (or rather, draped over one arm) and a cup of coffee in the other; and b) he was in civilian clothes, Obama really didn't have to salute. He did anyway, giving an unfortunately lackadaisical-looking effort that set the right wing media (and Mr Diggs) all frothing at the mouth.

Obviously it would have been better if Obama hadn't saluted at all-- but we all know that the right wing media would have exploded if he just didn't salute. And that's the point-- people who hate the President (basically everyone on the right) are going to hate him and find things to complain about no matter what.

Remember the whole tan suit thing? Like, seriously, right wing politicians-- not even just media idiots but actual politicians-- were mad about the color of Obama's suit. Even though:

What's that? St. Reagan is wearing a tan suit while hanging out with Lord Voledemort Scalia? What?!?

Oh. OK, right. So that's a lot of not-gray/navy blue/black suits worn by presidents!

Wait-- WWI Vet and 33rd President Harry S Truman, not you, too! Jesus. And that's not even tan!

See what I mean? If Bush gives some crummy salute, no one cares. When Obama does it, the right wing goes into a frenzy. If Obama wears a tan suit, some nut job is all up in arms even if a tan suit is sort of normal and plenty of people wear tan suits. (Let's agree, it could have been much worse!)

Feet on the desk? If Obama does it, some right-winger whines about respect and complains endlessly. But if Bush does it? No one cares. Hell, if you replaced Reagan with Obama in this photo:

You know that the right wing media would just totally blow up-- and no doubt the right wing thralls who read the Oklahoman would write in complaining about Obama's lack of respect or whatever.

Which brings us to the main point: this whole salute thing is a non-story. It isn't a real issue, and there are obviously things a commander in chief has done that are far more disappointing and disgraceful. But that doesn't matter, because this paper isn't about any of that. Instead, it just serves to disparage Democrats-- and obviously a Democratic President-- no matter what. There's a word for that: propaganda, and this paper is nothing but a right wing propaganda machine.