It was only a matter of time.

President Obama‘s allies in the media have begun pushing back against U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic lawmaker from the president’s home state of Hawaii who has been sharply critical of the White House for its handling of the Islamic State’s campaign of terror.

Gabbard is a combat veteran who was deployed twice to Iraq, and it appeared that she was being given a pass after making multiple appearances on Fox News and CNN to denounce Obama for not using the term “radical Islam” to properly identify Islamic State militants.

“Every soldier knows this simple fact: If you don’t know your enemy, you will not be able to defeat him,” Gabbard said recently during an appearance on Fox News. “Our leaders must clearly identify the enemy as Islamist extremists, understand the ideology that is motivating them and attracting new recruits, and focus on defeating that enemy both militarily and ideologically.”

She has also characterized Obama’s failure to recognize the enemy as “mind-boggling” and “troubling.”

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com But after a rare display of patience, the pro-Obama cavalry is finally coming to the rescue.

According to Fox News, popular Hawaii radio talk show host Michael W. Perry said Gabbard committed “a mortal sin” by challenging Obama, and “now the knives are out.” He said that “while Gabbard is correct in her ’emperor has no clothes’ moment, she may have lost her future seat on Hawaii’s political bench.”

Oahu-based Midweek columnist Bob Jones picked up on that theme by suggesting that Gabbard be challenged in 2016, Fox News reported. Not only that, he even diminished her service as a veteran.

Jones wrote: “I take serious issue when somebody who’s done a little non-fighting time in Iraq, and is not a Middle East or Islamic scholar, claims to know better than our President and Secretary of State how to fathom the motivations of terrorists, or how to refer to them beyond the term that best describes them — terrorists.”

Fox News also said the editorial board for Civil Beat, an online political news journal, wrote that the two-term Democrat is not “presenting serious policy arguments,” dismissing her views “as pandering from a young pol with lofty ambitions” before asking the ominous question, “But at what cost?”

To her credit, Gabbard seems to understand what she is up against, and is willing to put principle before politics — a rarity in today’s America.

“I’m not naïve,” she told Fox News. “It could hurt me politically, but I don’t worry about it because that’s not what I care about. … Our national security and the future of our country is infinitely more important than partisan politics or my personal political future.”