When Obama’s patriotism goes from implicit to explicit

April 7, 2008

In his most recent column for Time’s print edition, Joe Klein urged Barack Obama to address what he labeled the “patriotism problem” by relying more overtly patriotic appeals. “[T]o convince those who doubt him,” Klein said, “Obama has to make the implicit explicit. He will have to show that he can be as corny as he is cool.”

Now, I argued that the entire subject is rather tiresome. Klein’s column quoted Obama, for example, telling a March 5 audience, “I owe what I am to this country, this country that I love, and I will never forget it.” That may have sounded like a patriotic thing to say, but it apparently wasn’t explicit enough.

So, it appears Obama tried to make his point abundantly clear over the weekend, speaking at the Montana Democratic Party dinner on Saturday night.

“I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection. Because through revolution and slavery; war and depression; great battles for civil rights and women’s rights and worker’s rights, generations of Americans have shown their love of country by struggling and sacrificing and risking their lives to bring us that much closer to our founding promise. And as long as I live, I will never forget that I am only standing here because they did. […]

“It’s a country where the improbable love of my parents was actually possible; where my mother could raise me without much money but still send me to the best schools in the nation; a country where I’ve seen hope triumph in neighborhoods that were devastated by joblessness and poverty; where I’ve seen ordinary Americans find justice in a courtroom; where I’ve seen progress made for working families who need leaders who are willing to stand up and fight for them.

“That is the country I love. That is the promise of America. And in this election, if we can shed our cynicism and our doubts and our fears; if we remember that we rise or fall as one people, and that we can meet any challenge that comes our way if we meet it together, then I believe that this generation will do its part to perfect our union and keep our promise alive in the 21st century. Good night, God Bless, and as they say here in Butte, ‘tap ‘er light.'”

I haven’t the foggiest idea what “tap ‘er light” means — Montanans are welcome to explain in comments — but Klein linked approvingly to Obama’s remarks. Presumably, the repeated references to loving his country did the trick.

But I’m not counting on it.

Maybe Klein’s advice was sound. To my mind, Obama has nothing to prove — he’s been talking about patriotism, valuing patriotism, and by running for the nation’s highest office, he’s acting in a patriotic way. Clinton and McCain don’t seem to face these questions, and neither of them regularly wears flag lapel pins, either.

But then again, I’m probably not the target audience here.

I’m wondering, though, if those who are truly skeptical about Obama’s sincere love of country will be satisfied. I’m reminded of Jonah Goldberg’s recent LA Times piece in which the conservative writer argued, “One cannot credibly talk of love of country while simultaneously dodging the word and concept of patriotism,” adding, “[O]ne cannot sufficiently love one’s country if you are afraid to say so out loud.” Goldberg insisted it would behoove Obama to accept the “P-word.”

And so here we are, with Obama telling Montanans in plain language about “the country I love.” What are the chances that Goldberg and those who share his ideology were impressed? Or maybe Obama’s remarks don’t count because he wasn’t wearing a lapel pin during the speech. Or because he sang the National Anthem without his hand on his heart. Or because someone, somewhere, saw an email arguing that Obama’s patriotism is somehow less enthusiastic than it should be.

I’m entirely comfortable with Obama’s choice of words in Montana; I’m even comfortable with him making a conscious effort to respond to constructive criticism. But I think Dems are probably kidding themselves if they think explicit, unambiguous, and unequivocal statements of patriotism are enough to satisfy those who believe Obama’s national loyalty is necessarily suspect.


I would expect that Sloppy Joe Klein will soon come out with an editorial soon saying that Obama’s patriotism doesn’t ring true, isn’t authentic, or sounds like it’s spoken within quotes. And I would expect Sloppy Joe to do as little research for the upcoming editorial on Obama’s patriotism-within-quotes as he did the first time he lazily questioned Obama’s patriotism, which would be none at all.

  • The right wing/Clintonistas will not be happy until Obama starts out every speech:

    I love America. I am a Christian. I reject and denounce the following list of people….

    Actually, they still wouldn’t be happy then. They’d just sit around miserly coming up with new ways to malign him.

  • maybe “tap ‘er light” has to do with applying the brakes on an icy road. IIRC, montana roads are icy until about memorial day.

  • Obama is talking about real patriotism – love of one’s country.

    The fascist idiots (and drooling morons like Klein) talk about Patriotism – subservience to the regime.

    There’s a biiiiiiiiig difference, way beyond spelling.

  • the meaning of “Tap ‘er light”.
    http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132×5410028

    It literally means, “take it easy,” or “be careful and have a good day.” It comes from the practice of setting explosives in the mines, they had to pack in certain types of explosive charges by carefully tapping them in with a hammer. Hit the charge too hard, or miss and strike a spark off of rock, and ka-BOOM! (grin) Lots of cowboys in the local area who supplied beef cattle to the miners picked up the saying, so it spread amongst cattlemen too.

  • Curiosity got the best of me:

    Instead of saying “Take it easy,” we say “Tap ’er light,” an old expression that goes back to hand drilling the holes for the dynamite in the mines. One guy was holding the steel and turning it while the other was pounding it to bore the hole. The guy holding, worried about getting his hand whacked, would say, “Tap ’er light.”

    When they switched to electric drilling, the expressing became “Tamp ’er light” meaning to be careful tapping the blasting powder sticks into the hole.

  • I’m sure it won’t take them long to report that Obama said he went to Pakistan in the ’80’s, then link him to American Taliban. But speaking of Joe Klein…

  • The Thing about the Klein advise is this: You gotta watch the wedges.

    If people are looking at issues and feeling good about the candidates, Obama will become the next President.

    But this is not the environment that the GOP operates in. They’ll be looking to dredge up some B S wedge issues that can divide up the electorate. Anyone remember the gay marriage crisis of 2004? Man that was scary. I think Bush had the country at a lavender alert.

    A new wedge will be marketed in 2008. And it’ll be something that the GOP thinks will drive a segment of the white vote over to the GOP and push their majority of the white vote into a supermajority around 60th percentile or better.

    They’ve used race and religion before. It could be patriotism. It is coming.

  • Whatever. I won’t read anything offered by the guy who initially denied writing Primary Colors by Anonymous — a fun book, by the way — and then was fired by his employers at Newsweek when it was proven otherwise. At best, he’s proven himself to be nothing more than a hack journalist, and at worst, he’s a professional fraud.

  • The patriotism police will only allow Obama to be called a patriot if his message is neutered completely, ala MLK.

    Go read this Jeff Cohen article:

    Soon after Martin Luther King’s birthday became a federal holiday in 1986, I began prodding mainstream media to cover the dramatic story of King’s last year as he campaigned militantly against U.S. foreign and economic policy. Most of his last speeches were recorded. But year after year, corporate networks have refused to air the tapes.

    On Thursday night, NBC Nightly anchor Brian Williams enthused over new color footage of King that adorned its coverage of the 40th anniversary of the assassination. The report focused on the last phase of King’s life. But the same old blinders were in place.

    NBC showed young working class whites in Chicago taunting King. But there was no mention of how elite media had taunted King in his last year. In 1967 and 68, mainstream media saw Rev. King a bit like they now see Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

    Back then they denounced King’s critical comments; today they simply silence them.

    While noting in passing that King spoke out against the Vietnam War, mainstream reports today rarely acknowledge that he went way beyond Vietnam to decry U.S. militarism in general: “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos,” said King in 1967 speeches on foreign policy, “without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”…

    http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/81389/

  • 4.
    On April 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm, Tom Cleaver said:

    Obama is talking about real patriotism – love of one’s country.

    The fascist idiots (and drooling morons like Klein) talk about Patriotism – subservience to the regime.

    There’s a biiiiiiiiig difference, way beyond spelling.

    As was pointed out in another blog about Repug’s definition of “patriotism”, they use the word patriotism instead of the proper word: NATIONALISM- my government is always Right!
    Patriotism is loving your country, but also being able to point out when it is wrong. Nationalism is I love my country, and it is NEVER wrong! Repugs love Nationalism, not Patriotism. Forget about dumbing down science, Repug’s also dumb down English!!

  • Perhaps the trick is to come out and challenge the patriotism of those who are questioning his, either directly or indirectly. It doesn’t have top happen in a particularly belligerent way that says they are against America. He can simply say something like, “I ask those who are willing to let soldiers die in this war for no good reason, who are willing to let children go hungry each night, who are willing to let American dies because of a lack of health care….how they dare questioning my patriotism,” or something like that. Basically, he has to nudge his comments in that direction. I worry about trying to please people who complain about stuff like this in the way that Goldberg does because Obama will likely never do that and will, while trying to just that, end up reinforcing the caricature they are trying to put forth.

  • If Omaba’s truly patriotic (and I’m sure he is) then overt displays of respect for his country shouldn’t be a problem. He should wrap himself in the flag a few times, start wearing a flag pin more often and repeatedly discuss his patriotism. Pandering? Sure, but it wouldn’t hurt his campaign and actually might help it.

  • Real patriots do not let the soft (or hard) bigotry of low expectations cloud their vision of what the country can become. That makes it necessary to point out those areas where strides are necessary to move toward a more perfect union.

    Chalk up another point for Obama

  • Serving in his state in the senate and running for POTUS isn’t a clear indication of Obama’s patriotism?

    Its called grasping at straws

  • Every time there’s a news story, it is followed by the shop worn, predictable screeds from anti Obama bashers. “Obama is … ” The truth of the matter is that not one political analyst has successfully pigeon-holed Obama. The reason is simply that Obama is not confined by partisan party-lines. He uses good old fashioned horse sense.

    As for how much Obama is responsiblie for his Pastor’s remarks, I think in all fairness, he was in an environment where it was obviously tolerated by 8,000 Americans. Obama was allowed to get all the way to the Senate without this scrutiny. In context and without those annoying Utube endless loop reels of the Pastor’s incendiary remarks .. Wright is saying no more than Michael Moore said. No more than the 9-1-1 conspiracy theorists have said. His comments are not new. They have nothing to do with being Anti-American. The real anti-Americans are the ones who a President to come into a Democracy and declare that they are the Decider, and let him get away with it. The rest is political smoke. The anti-Americans put fear into people to divide them and make them a weaker people; let the environment get toxic for corporate profit, allow prisons to get filled up without questioning what is wrong; watching the burgeoning homeless populations in every urban center, the dollar decline in value, the infrastructure left to rot and kill Americans as you saw in Katrina and the bridge in Minnesota that collapsed from sheer neglect. That is anti-American. Speaking up loudly and being disgusted with what you see happening to our beloved country, can only be done by someone who has a heart and should be lauded as American. Anyone who says different has an agenda they are about to perpetrate on the American people. Look out. Be fearless. Have hope and vote smart.

  • Bending one’s prose to beat back the wingnuts is good preventive medicine…
    But at best it is merely stopgap.

    For Barack really to win on the patriotism issue there is really only one sure way:
    At every campaign rally his supporters must chant “USA” outrageously and uproariously.
    That’s how he wins on this issue…
    That is the only way.

    Let that insight go viral to all Democrats…
    Because ultimately, it isn’t on him.
    It is on you and I…

  • Obama still didn’t use the word “patriot” in those remarks, so I doubt it’ll be enough to satisfy Klein.

    After all Klein argued that Obama’s statement, “I owe what I am to this country, this country that I love, and I will never forget it,” wasn’t explicitly patriotic enough.

  • Heads-I-win-tails-you-lose Republicanism at its most loathsome. No matter how much or how little he talks about patriotism – HIS patriotism, his way of expressing patriotism, his definition of patriotism, etc. – it will always be perceived by his detractors as not enough or too-much, as in methinks-he-doth-protest-too-much. To his detractors. it will never be genuine, it will never be adequate, his motives will always be questioned, because ultimately it’s not really about BRANDING him unpatriotic. It’s just about keeping the question out there.

    The GOP never wins based on their merits, because most folks are smart enough to understand they’re not on the right side of every argument and it’s not a black-or-white world. They win based on the grays. They win by confusing mods and indies on what the Dems really stand for, or what the Dems are really like, so that they either vote for the GOP (at least I know where John McCain stands, I’ve just heard too much weird stuff about Obama and I don’t have the time to suss it all out), OR they just don’t vote at all. Either way, it’s NOT a vote for the Democratic party and that’s all that matters.

    So make people wonder if Obama is a Muslim, or if his pastor is anti-American, or if he’s SO unpatriotic he never wears a flag pin, or that his wife is ashamed to be an American, or that he’s less of a man because he sucks at bowling, etc. Just keep ’em guessing enough, prey on their fears and weaknesses, that they don’t want to take a chance on the guy, and it’s as good as a win in the GOP column.

  • The problem with Obama is that he can’t talk about loving his country without highlighting it’s flaws. In one breath he professes his love and in the next he focuses on the mistakes that were slavery and civil rights abuses and disenfranchisement of Americans. I think we are all fully aware that slavery was a mistake and that millions of Americans suffered because of it. It’s as if he is either trying to convince himself of his patriotism or trying to force himself to say something he just doesn’t mean.

    Meanwhile, he has no problem silencing the voices of Floridians and Michigonians because he’s afraid that their voices will run counter to his interests.

  • I think the Floridians and Michigonians blew their own primary delegations, and I seem to remember Hillary signing off on that. But maybe she doesn’t “remember” it that way.

  • Is Obama patriotic? Hmmmmm, he’s spent the last two years running for president, ditching his private life, exposing himself to idiotic pundits, not to mention making himself a literal target for any wingnut with a gun. Don’t forget a life of public service and that he choses to live in this country. To ponder the question further is to dwell in the stupidity which spawn the question. Ferchristssake, why the hell would someone who was not a patriot run for president to begin with?

  • The problem with Obama is that he can’t talk about loving his country without highlighting it’s flaws. -Ithought

    First, no, you didn’t think. You regurgitated. Second, he’s running for President. His goal is to make America a better place. He can’t do that without pointing out where it needs improving.

    Also, America isn’t perfect. We gain nothing turning a blind eye to our flaws. What if Lincoln had turned a blind eye to slavery? Or FDR to poverty? Or George Washington to imperialism? Where would we be then?

    …he has no problem silencing the voices of Floridians and Michigonians because he’s afraid that their voices will run counter to his interests. -Ithought

    Obama had nothing to do with that. You’re ‘fact’ challenged if you believe so. He was not a member of either state’s Congress nor the rules committee of the DNC which doled out the punishment. Harold Ickes, Clinton’s adviser was, however.

    And I highly doubt the voices in Michigan would run counter to Obama. Hell, a significant chunk of voters turned out for their meaningless primary to vote ‘anyone but Hillary.’

  • picture worth thousand words,
    from time to time
    wear stupid fucking little flag pin.

  • The problem with Obama is that he can’t talk about loving his country without highlighting it’s flaws.

    If you’re looking for the “America Can Do No Wrong!” party, you need to look to the Republicans. They say that all the time in their elections, and then get in office and seem to prove the opposite.

    Me? I’d rather have someone who works hard to make America even better than someone who assumes everything’s just fine as it is. We’ve had eight years of President Asleep at the Switch. That’s enough.

  • Ithought @ 22, that is what you call talking out of both sides of his mouth.

    Here’s another example of this phenomenon.

    Obama’s idea of patriotism is saying that he is patriotic (don’t tell me words don’t matter), but then making excuses for his pastor who is like “an uncle” who posts articles on Trinity’s website written by Hamas which blatently claims that Israel has no right to exist, and who says that we deserved 9/11, white people created AIDS, etc, etc..

    This is the perception that Obama must defeat, and Obama has done little to prove that he is in fact patriotic.. video proof of him NOT putting his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance FAR outweighs him saying he is patriotic, you folks should know that in politics, perception is reality.

    PS: the right wing video’s are already emerging.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hPR5jnjtLo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72B3tUAqpo4

  • “The problem with Obama is that he can’t talk about loving his country without highlighting it’s flaws. In one breath he professes his love and in the next he focuses on the mistakes that were slavery and civil rights abuses and disenfranchisement of Americans. I think we are all fully aware that slavery was a mistake and that millions of Americans suffered because of it. It’s as if he is either trying to convince himself of his patriotism or trying to force himself to say something he just doesn’t mean.”

    hey Ithought, your pants are on fire, but go ahead and ignore it I’m sure it will go out by itself…

    The “I’ll bury my head in the sand and hope the problem goes away but it will actually get worse while I am wishing it away and ignoring it meme” only works if you believe and clap your hands…

  • As a man thinks, so does he speak. It cannot be said enough, today as over the past few years and generations.

  • “I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection. — Obama

    I was going to bring up this quote, tongue firmly in cheek, as proof positive of Obama’s lack of patriotism (no room for improvement in this country!). And there’s “I thought” (and the last time was… when?), @22, actually propounding it as a *serious* argument. Good grief!

  • Barack Obama is patriotic in the truest sense of the word. He wants what’s best for our country. He knows that generosity, humility, responsibility and integrity are what’s best for everyone. Instead of a disastrous war, rampant greed and irresponsibility. And then everyone lying about it. I try to be patriotic in the same way. I don’t fly or wear the flag. And I don’t sing God Bless America, because I don’t think God will bless us if we’re not patriotic in the right way. I love my country dearly and I don’t want Joe Klein, John McCain, George Bush, and company to destroy it.

  • I think people get confused by patriotism and nationalism. Someone explained it recently on NPR, patriotism is loving your country but being willing to criticize it and nationalism is a blind devotion to your country and believing that it is superior to all others. The Nazis problem was that they took their nationalism too far. My attitude is that some Republicans show some Nazilike behavior in their attitudes about the rest of the world and immigrants.

  • Another non issue to distract attention from Obama’s lack of qualifications. The only policies giving him credibility – healthcare, fiscal restraint, bipartisanship – were taken from the Clintons. His ideas are vague fantasies and far left cliches without a snowball’s chance. If he’s elected, he’ll waste precious time on such nonsense. We’ll loose the congress, then the presidency. And it’s not clear if the party will recover in our lifetime. His supporters don’t car about real issues, though. They are the educated ones, so educated they were convinced by the media’s smear campaign three minutes after it started; they went into hypnotic trance from a deep voice, sing song delivery, and empty, feel-good rhetoric; and they’ve helped the media crowd out policy debate and adult conversation with name calling and shallow insults.
    http://a-civilife.blogspot.com

  • Will (#33),

    Actually, we were turned off by Clinton’s aversion to the truth and lack of respect for anyone who didn’t vote for her. We were turned on by Obama’s statesmanship, his appeal to a higher ethical standard and understanding of constitutional law.

  • Well, Will, you may have a point. And that point brings up my biggest fear about an Obama administration: that it will be a lot (too much) like the Clinton administration.

    Your whole future think description is really just a quick re-cap of the Clintons in the White House.

    They’ve already lived your story (and made us live it too). What makes you think that Clinton II, Hillary’s boogaloo, will be any different than the first time around?

  • Will #35
    “And it’s not clear if the party will recover in our lifetime. ”

    Let me get this straight. After 8 SHITTY years of King George and 6 years of his do-nothing Congress, plus 1+ year of his do-nothing but filibuster Repug Senators, Obama will destroy our party so badly in 4 years, that we will not recover in our lifetime. Someone has definately drank too much Kool-Aid in the last 8 years!

  • Some have suggested that Senator Barack Obama is not patriotic because he declined to wear a flag lapel pin and was observed not to have placed his hand over his heart during the playing of the National Anthem.

    This man — who has spent his entire adult life fighting in the urban trenches of Chicago for his fellow citizens’ equal rights and equal opportunities to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as the Constitution guarantees every American — “not patriotic”?

    This man — who taught U.S. Constitutional Law at one of the nation’s most highly regarded Law Schools and, in practice, took pains to apply careful reasoning and analysis to applications of the law in the real world — “not patriotic”?

    This man — who has used the platform of his candidacy to encourage his fellow Americans to reclaim their ownership of the political process, who has made his presidential campaign a campaign “of the people, by the people and for the people,” unlike any other in American history — “not patriotic”?

    This man — who helped lead the fight in the Senate against the Administration’s attack on habeas corpus rights, while others stood back — “not patriotic”?

    I agree that showing respect for the flag and the National Anthem is important, but I vehemently disagree that these external displays of “flag etiquette” are sufficient to determine the real measure of one’s patriotism. Patriotic gestures and symbols are rendered meaningless if we fail to uphold the Constitution in practice.

    Perhaps people who are so concerned about patriotism would better serve this country by railing against the President who intentionally manipulated intelligence and the media in order to falsely allege a national security threat and deceive the Congress into authorizing a war against Iraq.

    They should decry the President’s unilateral decision to deny the Constitutional right to habeas corpus for certain American citizens and for invoking the state-secrets privilege to deny victims of constitutional wrongdoing any judicial remedy.

    They should condemn how the President bypassed laws of conflict and set aside treaties ratified by Congress in order to kidnap, imprison and torture suspected terrorists in secret prisons abroad.

    They should fulminate at the President’s willful interpretation of legislation and laws in flagrant defiance of both Congressional intent and Supreme Court precedents.

    They should criticize the President for encroaching on the first amendment rights of journalists by threatening to prosecute them under the Espionage Act because their investigative reporting uncovers national security violations and abuses of power.

    I could go on and on, but lack the time or patience to cite the dozens of instances since he took office in which President Bush has claimed the authority to disobey laws of the land as he sees fit, in direct violation of his Constitutional mandate.

    Instead of questioning Barack Obama’s patriotism, I suggest that those who are so concerned show their own love of country and turn their attention to what their President has been doing (and is still doing) in our names these past 7 years.

    A real patriot would demand that our fellow citizens, especially our President, uphold and promote the ideals, principles and laws of the land embedded in the Constitution, which our American flag represents.

    In these respects, Senator Obama has distinguished himself as a model patriot and an exemplary American citizen. His personal and professional conduct over many years have proven that he deserves our absolute faith in his ability to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

  • I like the idea put forth by an earlier poster that there’s a distinction between patriotism and nationalism.

    Patriotism is love for our country, support for its leaders and participation as a citizenry to seek improvement in areas where we fall short of our ideals.

    Nationalism is the idea that our government is always right, that our way of life is superior to others’ and that focusing on internal problems is somehow disloyal. With nationalism, wearing a lapel flag can become a way to show “proof” of ones devotion to his country.

    The government has co-opted a patriotic symbol, our flag, and used it to rally support for unpopular wars. It has become attached, in my mind, to the military, to waging war based on nationalistic rhetoric and falsehoods. I won’t attach it to my car antenna or wear it as a pin because to do so would indicate that I support a war we should never have authorized.

    I will, however, continue to enjoy seeing it wave on the grounds of my state capital or over the heads of this year’s Olympic medalists.

  • A guy with a reputation for being a great talker talks about his patriotism, and that answers all the questions?

    What a wonderful world.

    Out where talk is cheap, folks will want to see actual deeds. How tiresomely reality-based.

    PS: Tap ‘er light – geez, google it. Interesting to see Obama making reference to the possibilty that he may be subject to a sudden unexpected explosion. More Wright coming?

  • In Montana, “tap ‘er light” is a mining reference meaning to take it easy loading dynamite.

    In Wisconsin it means when you tap the keg, don’t spray two gallons of beer on the floor-“tap ‘er light”.

  • F*cking brilliant! Obama knows how to speak to each individual audience, not just with “tap ‘er light” expressions, but with his understanding of red and blue America. Red America (remember “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”) has been voting against its own self-interest by voting for patriotic talk because a lot of red state America is impoverished, hardscrabble rural America and talk of how hard life is and how hard you have to be to counter it wins over a crowd that has lived life with calloused hands. Life is tough, but regardless, many of he people living there still feel that life is good. Obama hit that vein of patriotism like a Butte miner hit a vein of zinc.

    “I love this country not because it’s perfect, but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection … generations of Americans have shown their love of country by struggling and sacrificing and risking their lives to bring us that much closer to our founding promise. And as long as I live, I will never forget that I am only standing here because they did.” That is red state red meat, but also blue state red meat too.

    I was a Dodd guy when this campaign started out. But Obama is the real deal. He gets people. Barack won over a lot of the people in that room, and many who will read about it in the morning paper. The only people he has yet to convince are the media who are too busy getting a pearl necklace from John McCain. And that sucks for the rest of us that have to live with reality.

  • I am really impressed by the majority of the comments I’ve been reading for this article. It’s nice to know that even after nearly eight years of George Bush’s Reign of Error, there are still true Americans out there who love their country but are not blind to its flaws. It will be these true patriots who will help rebuild the USA after the disasters of the past eight years.

    Oh, and by the way, Obama isn’t blocking the votes from Florida and Michigan. All the candidates (including Hillary) agreed that those votes wouldn’t count and those states were given fair warning that they were going to be excluded for breaking the rules. The only reason Hillary is making a big deal out of it now is because her campaign is on its last legs. She could’ve have cared LESS about Florida and Michigan months ago when she thought she had the nomination in the bag. She’s going back on her word and she knows it, just because the tide has turned on her. And by the way, if she really does care so much about “voters being heard”, why is she hoping the superdelegates will overturn the will of the voters and nominate her instead of Obama? Some patriot she is.

  • When conservatives ask liberals if they are patriotic, it is akin to a wife asking her husband if her tush looks fat in the dress she’s wearing.

    The only acceptable answer is, respectively, “Yes, without reservation!” and “No dear, it’s perfect.”

    Any deviation from this acceptable answer is supposed to evoke crying, tirades, the silent treatment, or a furious packing of suitcases.

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