What's up with the respect problem??

I'm from uber-conservative Utah County. The very air we breathe is steeped in GOP-tainted gas (which might actually be leftover Geneva pollutants). The first president that I remember was Reagan and I liked him because I was a kid and he was the president. Then there was the election in '88 that really left no good option, just one okay choice, George H. W. Bush. Then came Operation Desert Storm. I actually remember President Bush discussing how we needed to protect our oil interests in the Gulf as we were so dependent on oil. Well no one wanted to send their sons and brothers to die because of crude oil, "No blood for oil." Under H. W. Bush there was the famous recession that probably wasn't really his fault, it was just the left over economic mess of Reaganomics. Ross Perot got involved in the next election and Bill Clinton was elected.
Anyway, I'm blabbing on about all of this because I'm frustrated about the hypocritical attitudes around me. After the First Gulf War and the supposed reasons for it (those poor Kuwaitis), I really had a hard time trusting H. W. I remembered how he first said that we needed to protect oil, then backed away saying that Saddam, our former friend, was a bad guy (he was) doing bad things to his own people and now the Kuwaitis. Some stories were trumped up ( Citizens_for_a_Free_Kuwait ), but whatever.

I liked Bill Clinton, even though a lot of people around here vilified him, just because he was a democrat. He was elected and was never treated with respect around here. Way before any Lewinsky anything happened, I got a three-dollar bill with Clinton's face on it ( see here ). It was okay to mock Clinton because he was who he was, at least in their eyes. I didn't fight very much on this, there wasn't really any reason to because I wouldn't have changed anyone's mind.

George W. Bush was elected and people in Utah County were giddy. It's fine, he's who they wanted. But it's a funny thing that now we're not allowed to mock--or even question!!--the president because he's our elected official and we must respect the office he holds at all costs.
Am I the only one that sees the hypocrisy in this? I respect the office of the president and that is why I question the moves the president makes (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter...).
Now somehow it's a sin for me to question any move that W. makes based on the simple fact that he's in office. What would these same people have done if I'd used this argument against them 10-15 years ago? Hypocrisy, yes.
But I think it goes even deeper than that. Many people around here equate W. with Captain Moroni. Whether or not the belief is true, the result holds: they grasp onto President Bush with religious zeal. Thus they are afraid to look at facts thinking that somehow it could cause their world to fall down. Even if you believe something to be true, you can be very afraid of asking questions and finding facts because it could lead to something that's rocks your foundation. I ask questions and present doubts that rock the foundation.
Zeal can be a very scary thing indeed, especially when accompanied by a fear of learning truths and facts, and most especially a lack of desire or guts to change. A huge problem here lies in the fact that this is not about absolute truth at all, but about something as fallible as politics and politicians.