I realize the president, by the very nature of his job, is subject to wildly unrealistic and often contradictory expectations, but this is absurd.

Mediaite's Steve Krakauer has a column up today chastising President Obama for his interview yesterday with CBS's Harry Smith, during which Smith asked the president if he was aware of “the level of enmity that crosses the airwaves that people have made part of their daily conversation about you.” Obama responded in the affirmative, singling out Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, calling their rhetoric “troublesome.”

This, according to Krakauer, crossed the line: “What reason does the leader of the free world feel it is appropriate to personally call out radio and TV hosts, even if they are, perhaps, some of the most powerful media figures in the country?”

Seriously? Beck and Limbaugh -- arguably the most influential personalities of the American right -- devote just about every second of their hours-long daily media programs to calling Obama a dangerous, socialist, fascist, communist Nazi who is purposefully destroying the United States, and Obama's out of line for calling that “troublesome”? Does Krakauer think it's not “troublesome” for Glenn Beck to wave around a baseball bat and wind up his viewers by warning them that they could be victims of the Obama administration “killing spree”? Or perhaps he thinks it's perfectly “appropriate” for Limbaugh to call the president a "reverse racist" and an "angry black guy."

Then Krakauer posits a hypothetical that can be generously described as inane:

But by this particular sitting President using Beck and Limbaugh's names, it indicates one of two things - he either, at least occasionally, tunes into their TV or radio shows (a surprising, but interesting prospect) or he has no idea, ultimately, what he's talking about regarding the content of these programs. To ardent supporters of Pres. Obama - which one is better?

Perhaps it's never occurred to Krakauer that, what with all the websites and media outlets that follow Beck's and Limbaugh's daily outbursts (Media Matters and Mediaite included), it's entirely possible for the president to become aware of what his most influential detractors are saying about him without actually tuning into their programs. I hear that the White House has an entire press team, and it's possible that they might keep an ear on what Beck and Limbaugh -- “some of the most powerful media figures in the country” -- are saying on a daily basis because their arguments tend to shape Republican attacks on administration policies.

Krakauer has set up this absurd situation in which Beck and Limbaugh are free to use their considerable media presence to slander and defame the president, but should be inoculated from the criticism -- even the attention -- of their primary target, who must hew to some undefined standard of propriety. And I know that presidents and radio hosts are held to different standards, but surely the president's is somewhere above “uninformed punching bag.”

Previously: Bizarre free speech argument: White House can't have an opinion about journalism