Barack Obama: “As Americans, we must keep striving to live up to our founding ideals.”

It is a decision about how do we face and embrace this finite amount of time we have on the planet.

The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.

It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say.

Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.