Posted by
Paul Wamack on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 12:25:49 PM
Patriotism in the Presidential Election
Today, Reuters posted a story about the differing definitions of patriotism in the current Presidential race. The reporter, Matthew Bigg, claims there are two types of patriotism; one type of patriotism is the war hero saga of John McCain, while the other type of patriotism is Barack Obama’s “call … back to the can-do spirit of the nation's founders.” I’m not kidding. I couldn’t make this stuff up. Here, see for yourself:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080819/pl_nm/usa_politics_patriotism_dc_5
Mr. Bigg goes on to tell us that patriotism is a fuzzy issue (I suppose that is his escape hatch, if needed) but that Candidate Obama has made it a “core theme” of his current campaign. Excuse me? Either Mr. Bigg or I have been off-planet lately, because that’s not exactly what I have been hearing. Let’s see there was that business about “… the first time in my adult life that I have been proud of my country” from his lovely wife, who never backed away from what she said and what she meant, just saying that this country isn’t ready for a strong woman (while her husband was campaigning against … yea, we get it. We never believed that cover in the first place.)
Now, maybe I am a little too fuzzy on the fuzzy issue of patriotism. So I looked it up at "dictionary.com" to see if I could get the numed fuzziness explained to me. The definition that popped up read, “–noun, devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.” To make matters worse, it went on to say that this word has had this definition since sometime around 1720. So I don't see anything fuzzy here and I think the better part of three hundred years ought to be time enough for everyone to get the hang of what the word means.
Does anyone need to be reminded of Barack Obama’s position(s) on the defense of his county?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_N1rqVo2W0
There was another YouTube video in which Barack Obama was delivering a speech on the immediate and thorough defunding of the military, but I can’t find it now. There are so many Obama videos now that it is hard to work my way through all of them. I’m sure someone can find it and post it here in the comments.
If Barack Obama can actually convince the voters, through the enthusiastic support of a few Reuters reporters, that he is patriotic, I’ll eat his lapel pin. Oh wait. Is he currently wearing one? OK, I’ll eat Nancy Pelosi’s lapel pin. No, wait. I don’t think she wears one either. It seems the whole Democratic Party is going through a desperate and tortured rewrite of the word “patriotism” to get that defense and loyalty stuff out of there. Criticism of the U.S. and witty put-downs -- that’s the new and upcoming definition of patriotism.
The interesting theme in all of this was best articulated by a young lady that I was talking to a few weeks back. She was gushing and gurgling about how wonderful Obama was. I asked her a few questions, which she really couldn’t answer, about his policies and plans for our country. Finally, she tossed her hair back and said, “Just stop! There is nothing you can say that is going to make any difference to me. I just like him.”
‘Nuff said.