Sounding Off:

Most of us have to go through life earning respect. We have to earn it from our family, from our co-workers and, if we are a politician, from our constituents.

Respect usually comes from hard work, honesty and treating others with respect. But the respect rules do not apply if you are the president of the United States. If you are the president, you command respect, regardless of whether it is deserved.

During the president’s health-care speech before Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson (R – S.C.) yelled, “You lie!” when Obama mentioned health-care coverage for illegal immigrants.

Wilson was wrong not only to interrupt the president, but to call him a liar when he had no proof.

Then former President Jimmy Carter claimed that Wilson’s outburst was “based on racism.” Will someone please find some more building materials to help keep this guy away from microphones?

Wilson’s comment had as much to do with racism as I have to do with the Hubble telescope: namely, nothing.

Wilson is just rude, inconsiderate. His type comes in all shapes, sizes and colors, and you see them every day. They cut you off on the freeway, talk extraordinarily loud on their cell phones and, in general, push and shove their way through life.

Call it bad parenting or bad wiring, there is no excuse beyond that for Wilson’s type of human being or for what he did.

There is a small part of the outburst for which Obama may have been responsible. Obama’s style, you see, has encouraged a level of communication that invites an informality that has no place in the Oval Office.

Where other presidents went out of their way to dress the part, Obama is more at ease without a tie, without a jacket and rolling up his shirt sleeves, as though that is some sort of signal that he is hard at work, one of the qualifications for earning respect.

Obama wants people to relate to him as someone who can not only fix health care, but can program your TiVo.

Whether he is calling the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates an “act of stupidity,” or calling Kanye West a “jackass,” Obama wants us to know that he is informed and has an opinion on everything, even on issues that serve only to reduce his level of respect.

Obama’s supreme “one of the guys” comments came Sept. 16 when he realized that his “jackass” comment had been recorded. In an effort to halt its distribution, Obama said, “C’mon guys. Cut the president some slack. I’ve got a lot of other stuff on my plate.”

Excuse me, sir?

That’s how I talk. That is not how I want my president to talk, particularly after he has uttered yet another regrettable opinion.

The president may not be able to completely stop another outburst like Wilson’s, but he can help prevent it by appearing and sounding more like the president.

STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident.