It’s always an emotional time when your president transforms into an ordinary president.  No, he hasn’t been caught with an intern or raised taxes after promising he wouldn’t.  Instead, he’s considering military action in a foreign land.
   A couple things you should know:  “artificial banana” is not a flavor, and I do like and support Obama.  But the question is: how is he now a normal president?
  You see, throughout our nation’s history, presidents have done things, and there are those who find ways to disagree with the presidents, even when it worked out in everyone’s interest (who’s still upset about Jefferson’s “unconstitutional” purchase?).   And that’s a good thing, because the First Amendment guarantees this liberty and as Americans, we’re in the habit of thinking that we’re always right.  
  For example, consider President James Madison and the War of 1812 (their catchy slogan was “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights.”  Times were different then.)  Public opinion was sharply divided over the prospect of war with Great Britain, whose navy had been ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll every year since before the American Revolution, but Madison went forward with it anyway (we eventually won with a stunning overtime victory at New Orleans).
 Fast forward to President Polk, who justified the Mexican-American War with manifest destiny.  Called “Mr. Polk’s War” by its detractors, a group that included future president Abraham Lincoln, the seeds of the Civil War were revealed in major sectional and regional division over its merits.  
  The list goes on:  in 1898 we saw McKinley’s quest to liberate Cuba from the evil clutches of the Spanish empire; Woodrow Wilson (campaign slogan 1916: “He Kept Us Out Of War”) decided to join World War I, which still had the working title “The War to End all Wars.” Eisenhower, who presided over the biggest expansion of “Leave it to Beaver” reruns in history, supplied 100 percent of the military budget to the Royal Lao government during the Laos Civil War.  
   So, presidents have historically decided to go mucking about in wars, to varying public opinion.  What about Mr. Obama?
   Well, for the first four years of his presidency, we were treated to such novelties as the first black president, the early assertions that he was a secret Muslim, the bizarre Birther movement, his Nobel Peace prize, Obamacare, the Great Recovery, Bin Laden’s elimination and the winding down of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.  After his re-election last fall, it was expected that we would see more historic milestones.  But, as happens even with the best of us, he dropped his game.
  We saw early signs of his conversion to a normal president during the budget crisis back in 2011.  Hope survived, though, as the country remained sharply divided over the simple fact that he was president.  But that’s all gone now.  Nope, now people are angry that he’s considering a military strike in a foreign nation because he thinks it’s right. Ironically, many of these people are the same ones who argued that leaving Iraq showed weakness.  
   In an informal poll, a few Mississippi State University students were asked whether they felt Obama’s threat of action against Syria made him seem more like a normal president. Three weren’t sure, and four felt that it did.
   There you have it: President Obama is just like any other president now. He runs the country as he sees fit, dealing with Congress according to the Constitution and assaults foreign lands whenever it is the “right thing to do.” Fourty-four is growing up so fast.