Even Jane Fonda, who should have been sent to Leavenworth for lending aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese, hasn’t been shunned or shamed. Instead, she’s spent the past three decades winning Oscars, hawking exercise tapes and being honored by feminist groups.

And, lest we forget, the same jerks who openly despised Elia Kazan for half a century because he had the temerity to name Communists have lionized John Dean even though his sole claim to fame was ratting out his Republican friends and colleagues 35 years ago.

Considering how tolerant and accepting society has become, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that Barack Obama is held in such ridiculously high esteem by so many people. Blame it on my cynicism, but to me, he comes across like a late night TV pitchman. If he hadn’t made such a success out of politics, I would have expected him to wind up doing infomercials for Ginsu knives or that hair paint product that comes in aerosol cans.

Recently, I saw a poll that asked Americans to name the people they most admire. It was an interesting list. Six of the people were dead, four of them by assassination. Only one woman, Mother Teresa, made the top 10 and she came in 10th, just behind airline pilot Chesley Sullenburger. In ascending order, the remaining eight were John Kennedy, John McCain, Abe Lincoln, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ and, topping the list, Barack Obama.

I admit I was slightly put out that six politicians made it, even if four were Republicans, and I didn’t. But when I discovered that even God only came in 11th, I didn’t feel nearly so bad.