Maiestas Minuta Praesidi Obami

The Romans had a cover-all charge called Maiestas, which was short for maiestas minuta populi Romani - the crime of diminishing the greatness of the People of Rome.

The punishment for the charge was death or banishment and confiscation of the transgressors property as punishment for actions ranging from libel and slander of the emperor up through more serious (and often trumped-up) treason and conspiracy charges.

Basically, it was a great way of silencing political enemies of the emperor and enriching the public purse at the same time by taking their property.

Now it appears that Obama is gearing up to make a charge of diminishing the greatness of President Obama.

He even offers a helpful, if not downright creepy site, hosted on his rather creepily named my.barackobama.com by allowing his supporters to submit reports of attacks on the greatness of Obama. It's gathering a fair bit of attention these days.

So you may want to go early and self-report: Attention, Citizens

Tam points out the impressive tone deafness of it all.

I'm not sure if it is tone deafness. It may just be they simply no longer care what their critics and opponents think and just want to fire up and aggrandize their suporters and hope that is enough to carry him through 2012.

Most Americans get a little concerned when their President and his staff starts requesting reports so that an enemies list of critics of the President can be assembled.

As much as Obama and some of his more diehard supporters would prefer otherwise, no one elected him Emperor.