Diminishing the Presidency?

Outside America, it increasingly appears that President Obama lacks the stomach to hold anyone accountable for anything -- not the Taliban, not the Iranian government, not even the Sudanese leadership that he had once pledged to isolate. No country is too small to appease.

At home, however, he's willing to "take no prisoners" in his attacks on administration's critics. In fact, no critic is too small to take on, whether it's liberal bloggers, or health insurers, or that good all-purpose whipping boy, Fox News.

At a certain point, will anyone start wondering about whether this is just diminishing the American presidency? Once upon a time, the leader of the free world didn't try to gag his domestic opposition while still tolerating just about anything any foreign leader chose to dish out.

Shouldn't the President be a little less tolerant of the world's tyrants and oppressors -- and a little more tolerant of fellow Americans who genuinely disagree with him (whether from the left or the right) on policy?