{"id":16527,"date":"2008-08-08T16:30:32","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T20:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16493.html"},"modified":"2008-08-08T16:30:32","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T20:30:32","slug":"striving-towards-a-more-perfect-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/striving-towards-a-more-perfect-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Striving towards a more perfect Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

About once a week, far-right blogs throw a fit about one manufactured controversy or another, usually to no avail. This week’s outrage, apparently, was Barack Obama’s response to an Indiana girl’s question about why he’s running for president.<\/p>\n

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“America,” Obama said, “is no longer what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, ‘I don’t want that future for my children.'”<\/p>\n

It struck me as a pretty innocuous thing to say, but more than 300<\/a> conservative blogs are outraged<\/a> — or, at a minimum, feigning outrage — as is Rush Limbaugh. Apparently, Obama’s response was insufficiently patriotic. The title from the YouTube poster reads, “Barack Obama To Little Girl: America’s Not So Great.”<\/p>\n

I see. So, if one believes the nation could be better, and has fallen short of late of some of the greatness we’ve achieved in years past, then he\/she necessarily sees the United States as less than great now. Got it.<\/p>\n

Of course, as Steve M. noted<\/a>, that might cause Ronald Reagan some trouble, given that one of his 1980 campaign slogans was, “Let’s make America great again.”<\/p>\n

“Yup, Reagan said we had to make America great again<\/i>,” Steve responded. That meant that, in 1980, he didn’t think America was great<\/i>. Filthy America-basher. (And I hear he was from Hollywood, too.)”<\/p>\n

I also can’t help but think John McCain may also have trouble with the right’s standard for patriotism.
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\nIn June, for example, McCain hosted an online Q&A and heard from a man who was educated at Princeton and Harvard, and who made more than $300,000 a year. “How can I be proud of my country?” he asked. The question was intended to be a not-so-subtle shot at Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n

McCain didn’t pick up on the joke. Asked how someone could be proud of the United States, McCain said<\/a>, “I’ll admit to you that it’s tough, it’s tough in some respects.” He added that America needed to be “more humble, more inclusive.”<\/p>\n

Really? It’s “tough” to be proud of the United States? We’re too arrogant and overly exclusive? These aren’t radical, treasonous ideas, but if Obama had said the same thing, you better believe we’d not only hear about it, but the comments would quickly become the basis for an aggressive push-back campaign that would last from now until November. (“What do you mean it’s ‘tough’ to be proud of America? It’s easy<\/i> to be proud of the greatest country on earth. Why would someone who wants to lead the nation not believe that?”)<\/p>\n

A few months earlier, McCain told Fox News<\/a>, “I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her company.”<\/p>\n

What’s wrong with that? Nothing in particular; I know what McCain meant (that he began to appreciate America more when he lost his freedom during Vietnam). But, again, one can easily imagine the right’s unhinged reaction if Obama had said something similar. (“What do you mean you didn’t really love America? Real Americans always<\/i> love America….”)<\/p>\n

The point isn’t that McCain and\/or Reagan are unpatriotic; the point is Obama’s remarks were harmless and uncontroversial. He loves America, so he wants it to be even better than it is today. That’s not unpatriotic; that’s the opposite<\/i> of being unpatriotic.<\/p>\n

Weekly right-wing freak-outs are not only tiresome, they’re embarrassing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About once a week, far-right blogs throw a fit about one manufactured controversy or another, usually to no avail. This week’s outrage, apparently, was Barack Obama’s response to an Indiana girl’s question about why he’s running for president. “America,” Obama said, “is no longer what it could be, what it once was. And I say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}