We stand in front of the flat screen TV waiting to pay for our lunch, watching Barak Obama as he is guided through the Pyramids with a highly regarded (I would think) Egyptologist. The sound is off, there's at least five people in front of me, so I scrutinize the images more than I might have. The scholar sports crumpled denim and an Indiana Jones hat, I note. In contrast, the President looks quite GQ in an unbuttoned black polo shirt and light khaki trousers...

But wait! What is that I see? Is he... No... No way...

Oh. My. God.

He is.

The President is chewing gum. Not just chewing. Smacking. With what might have been considered a rolling bovine movement, if it weren't for the focus and intensity. In the case of Barack, I'm watching a 1940s sports announcer calling the final moments of the Big Game.

Okay, yes, I know: our culture has gone soft in its attention to formality. We don't dress up to board a plane. Or wear jeans just on the weekends. Or use flip flops just for the grotty shower at a camp site. People chew gum everywhere. At funerals. At symphonic concerts. At city council meetings. I was at a school play waiting for the lights to go down, looked around the auditorium and thought, "Holy shit. We've become a community of cows."

But the Head of State?

I told my daughter about the news cast. "It just looked so tacky. I think he needs to be modeling appropriate behavior. Good manners. He's the President, for god's sake."

"You don't know the circumstances, Mom," she said. She's in love with Barack. "Maybe he had an upset stomach and needed some mint and the only mint immediately available was in the form of a Chiclets. Maybe he was self-conscious about his breath. Maybe he was jet lagged and trying to stay alert. Maybe he was trying not to smoke. Maybe an Egyptian diplomat gave him the gum and it would have been culturally inappropriate not to have chewed it. You don't know, Mom. Quit assuming the worse about people. God."

All right. For now, I'll give the President the benefit of the doubt. It's way more than I would have done for Bush.