Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face. Does anybody remember this?

Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face, and that guy later went on national television to apologize to the former vice president. Not to mention that the press was only filled in on the story days after the event.

So why do I choose to bring this up? Is it because I think Dick Cheney is an evil man and that the new administration is a gift from heaven? Not particularly.

After reflecting on these past eight months, I can only imagine what the headline on Fox News would read today if Joe Biden shot some guy in the face.

Needless to say, I am still amazed at the double standard President Barack Obama receives in this country. It seems everyone has forgotten about all the controversies from the past eight years and is too quick to jump on Obama for the stupidest things.

Take the September school speech to school kids. Those on the fringe were quick to denounce the speech as “political indoctrination.” In reality, the speech only encouraged kids to stay in school.

In Medina, children who attended public schools were not allowed to view the speech. Ironically, during a campaign stop by President George H.W. Bush some odd years ago, Medina let their students out of class to hear him speak.

And then there was the controversy over the Olympics. I may be young, but I can never remember a time in this country when citizens celebrated our nation’s defeat at bidding for the Olympic Games. It was certainly not a joyous occasion when President Bush “lost” the 2012 games for New York City.

More recently, there was the controversy over the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, I really don’t know if Obama was deserving of this prize. And quite frankly, I really don’t care.

But I find myself agreeing with Bill O’Reilly when he said, “Having a U.S. president honored with a peace prize is good for the country. We should want the world to think we’re a nation that gives peace a chance, because that’s what we are.”

Unfortunately for Bill, bloggers on TheFoxNation.com did not agree.

“Our family no longer watches the O’Reilly program due to has (sic) leftwing agenda,” wrote one blogger. “Please switch the time slots between Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. Beck is an all American hero and O’Reilly is in bed with Obama.”

Some of you probably think I am a pro-Obama zealot who turns a blind eye toward the president’s actions.

In all honesty, I used to despise President Obama. During the 2008 primary season, I was a huge Hillary Clinton fan. And the columns I had written during that spring definitely reflected that.

Truth be told, I never really disagreed with President Obama on policy issues; his platform was almost identical to Hillary Clinton’s. My dislike of him stemmed from my fear that he would lose the White House for the Democrats.

So, like any loyal Hillary supporter, I spent a lot of time researching news articles on the Internet.

And believe me, I researched everything on Obama in order to support my opinion at the time for my columns. But the majority of the time, my concerns turned out to be nothing (much to my dismay).

This guy was legitimate. The real deal.

Like many Americans, my primary scares eventually healed and I realized that my dislike of Obama was rather baseless.

If Americans open their eyes, they will realize that these “controversies” are baseless. They will realize Obama is not on a mission to destroy our nation, and he is only pushing health-care reform because he truly feels that is best for people.

It doesn’t mean that you have to love his policies, but I think we can all agree that most of the “Obama hate” in this nation has nothing to do with his political positions as much as it is toward Obama himself.

Frank Yonkof is a sophomore newspaper journalism major and columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].