Time’s Joe Klein devotes his print column this week to Barack Obama and what Klein perceives as the senator’s “patriotism problem.” After watching Obama campaign in Pennsylvania, the columnist argues that it’s the one thing “missing” from Obama’s campaign pitch.
Patriotism is, sadly, a crucial challenge for Obama now. His aides believe that the Wright controversy was more about anti-Americanism than it was about race. Michelle Obama’s unfortunate comment that the success of the campaign had made her proud of America “for the first time” in her adult life and the Senator’s own decision to stow his American-flag lapel pin — plus his Islamic-sounding name — have fed a scurrilous undercurrent of doubt about whether he is “American” enough.
“In this campaign, we will not stand for the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon,” he said on the night that he lost Ohio and Texas. But then he added, “I owe what I am to this country, this country that I love, and I will never forget it.” That has been the implicit patriotism of the Obama candidacy: only in America could a product of Kenya and Kansas seek the presidency. It is part of what has proved so thrilling to his young followers, who chanted, “U-S-A, U-S-A,” the night that he won the Iowa caucuses. But now, to convince those who doubt him, Obama has to make the implicit explicit. He will have to show that he can be as corny as he is cool.
The argument reminds me quite a bit of a recent column from Jonah Goldberg — generally not a writer Klein would want to be compared to — who insisted to LA Times readers a few weeks ago that Obama doesn’t use the “P-word” nearly enough. “One cannot credibly talk of love of country while simultaneously dodging the word and concept of patriotism,” Goldberg said, adding, “[O]ne cannot sufficiently love one’s country if you are afraid to say so out loud.”
Neither Klein nor Goldberg said that Obama’s love of country somehow falls short, but rather, that his rhetoric isn’t nearly overt enough about it.
It’s not enough to be patriotic, and act in a patriotic fashion, Obama must overcome doubts — created by baseless reports, senseless bigotry, and an ugly smear effort — by making it plain. For Klein, running for president and talking about “this country that I love” is insufficient. These are “implicit,” not “explicit,” examples of patriotism.
I’m not sure if this is good advice or not, but either way, the subject has become unusually tiresome.
First, as Jason Linkins explained, we’ve all heard quite enough of this.
Very few things fail to impress me more than sad arguments over a Presidential candidate’s level of “patriotism.” I am sufficiently convinced that all the candidates in the race, on all sides, have sufficient affection for this country. It’s so hard to imagine that anyone would publicly declare their desire to serve in such a difficult job that questioning their patriotism is simply not a matter of discussion for serious men and women. It is the province of tinfoil hat wearing, “Manchurian candidate” suspecting loons and partisan hacks who lack the intellectual depth to wield a more substantive brickbat.
Second, the Klein-Goldberg hand-wringing is factually mistaken. As Media Matters recently documented, Obama has talked and written about patriotism at great length. The “explicit” rhetoric isn’t exactly hiding.
Indeed, it was Klein himself who wrote a month ago today that Obama delivered a speech after his March 5 defeats in which “patriotism replaced hope as a theme.”
So, Obama is talking about patriotism, valuing patriotism, and acting in a patriotic way. And yet, Time readers will read this week that patriotism is nevertheless “missing” from Obama’s message to voters.
I often get the sense that short of changing his name and wearing ridiculous costumes, Barack Obama just won’t be able to make these questions go away.
