WASHINGTON D.C.—The week was filled with shock and awe in political news. However, it was not the type of shock and awe people wanted to see or hear. General Stanley McChrystal, who was the top military commander in the Afghanistan war theatre, found himself apologizing for his interview with Rolling Stone magazine four days before it was even released to the general public.

For a general that was already aware of two strikes against him, previously being accused of leaking a confidential memo about his need for additional troops and then getting caught in Europe talking about the vice president, you’d think his Rolling Stone magazine interview would have been more guarded, or even more respectful. What I found so hideous about his article is that he describes the war as a failure while we have troops overseas fighting the enemy. Surely there was no reason to paint the war in a positive image, but dire predictions being spouted off to a reporter during the most pivotal part of the mission was chilling to our troops and to their families back here who sent them off to what they believed at the time was a just war.

With troops on the ground doing an exemplary job on a daily basis, you’d think the general supervising them would have more common sense and decency than to state publicly that the battle is essentially lost. General McChrystal’s knowledge of “special operations” missions is second to none, but after he so publicly admitted to voting for this president, then belittling him and the vice president, it was almost as if we were hearing the ranting of the right-wing in politics and not an officer and a gentleman.

No one can deny that this is just another incident in a long line of attacks on this president’s legitimacy, which the Republican Party has fanned the flames and enjoyed the reaping of short term political benefits since former Governor Sarah Palin and many right-wing bloggers and talking heads on a particular cable news channel have encouraged, repeated and reveled in calling the commander-in-chief all sorts of nasty names. We can disagree with the president’s domestic policies, as I do very often, without being so unruly and disrespectful.

What is unforgivable is the state of disrespect many in our nation now feel is justified and more importantly, a proper way to talk and behave. This current behavior is highly inappropriate and the men and women who suffer the most because of further disrespect for the Office of the Presidency are our troops thousands of miles away in Afghanistan. Let us not be fooled, our enemies truly are the people who have reason to celebrate. The terrorists in Afghanistan can now laugh not only at our nation, but our allies. The nation of France was ridiculed in this interview/feature with Rolling Stone as well. How dare a general show such disrespect for his own nation and then to drag our allies into this now international scandal. France has lost dozens of their citizens who are fighting arm and arm with our troops in the region.

With all of this said, General Stanley McChrystal was at the time the best man perfectly trained and equipped to follow through with the policies set forth for a winning strategy in Afghanistan. However, it was the president’s decision to accept his resignation. General McChrystal’s replacement, General David Petraeus, is a proper replacement. Perhaps now the political bloodletting we have been witnessing the past two years had to culminate to this point, so that we as a nation can see that there are too many serious issues we are facing, most importantly this fight in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, and we should turn away from being so disrespectful to our leaders. Voting against them in the next election cycle is the best way to show our disapproval, not the way we’ve been witnessing of late.

Despite what the Tea Party and the right-wing would have you to believe, the nation’s greatest threat and our enemy is Al Qaeda not our useless politicians, the terrorists are who we should be fighting. We can vote in November and again in two years for a new regime to helm our nation, in both the executive and legislative branches. We absolutely must move on past this point and this president has singularly shown a level of restraint that no other president has shown in the past decades with the exception of George Herbert Walker Bush while ignoring vilification and personal attacks. I may disagree with President Obama’s domestic policies and still believe that he is leaning too far liberal for our nation’s best interests, but we have witnessed a form of abuse from disrespect for his birthplace of Hawaii, to being falsely called a Muslim as a way to gain political control. Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said it best, “Elections have consequences.” We simply cannot stand as a nation divided every political season.

From the Tea Party’s two latest examples of what they believe and are willing to fight for, from U.S. senatorial candidate Rand Paul’s disagreement with the 1965 Civil Rights Act, to senatorial candidate Sharron Angle’s comment that Americans may have to respond to Congress using “our Second Amendment remedy,” this is a group that is becoming very scary to forward thinkers who do not believe the nation benefits from extremism on the right or the left.

Respect should be shown to whomever occupies the Oval Office in our nation. Let us please remember to also respect our troops and to pray for their valiant efforts in this war on terror. May our military generals equally respect their soldiers, and show them the support they need to continue doing the heavy lifting in this war. Our military is the envy of the world. It’s not only because of our technology and brute force, but the respect the men and women in uniform show our nation and the world on a daily basis. Too bad we can’t clone this great attribute and bring it stateside to very unhappy Americans who hate our leadership more than they love our nation.