Pins and Panders: Obama Wears His Independence on His Lapel

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Pins and Panders
Obama Wears His Independence on His Lapel
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, May 6, 2008; Page A19

Sometimes I think the best thing about Barack Obama is that little empty space on his lapel. It is where other politicians wear the American flag pin, a kitschy piece of empty symbolism that tells you nothing about that particular person except that he or she thinks like everyone else. Obama's flag, invisible to the naked eye, is the Jolly Roger of a politician thinking for himself.

The flag pin issue arose last fall when someone noticed that Obama was campaigning in the patriotic nude. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, wearing the pin had become de rigueur for politicians. Obama, too, had worn the pin but took it off when he started "noticing people wearing a lapel pin, but not acting very patriotic." Some of these people, he said unconvincingly, were not voting for veterans' benefits and the like -- "not voting to make sure that disability payments were coming out on time."

I suspect more to the point -- and much more important than votes on veterans' issues -- was Obama's sense that the flag pin, rather than representing patriotism, was an emblem of conformity and hypocrisy....

Obama better expressed his feelings later in the campaign when, during a Democratic debate on April 16, he was asked by ABC's Charlie Gibson why he didn't sport the lapel pin and he answered, if I may paraphrase, that the flag flew in his heart. "Well, look, I revere the American flag," he said. "And I would not be running for president if I did not revere this country. I would not be standing here if it wasn't for this country. And I've said this -- again, there's no other country in which my story is even possible." He is, as countless foreigners will attest, a resplendent emblem of American possibilities.

Many people will read a lot of meaning into Obama's refusal to wear the pin. Some will see it as a lack of patriotism, an emotional distance from the country that has served him so well. Others, such as I, will see it as an expression of cool, the statement of a candidate who wants to be president but not at the cost of his intellectual integrity. And still others (me again) will see it as Obama's push-back, his reluctance to do something simply because it is demanded of him....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/05/AR2008050502065.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR

[class2068]

1. All Obama's "independence from pins" does

is piss-off America's 19 million veterans. I'm one of them.

[Jensen]

2. Thank goodness someone is smart enough that wearing a $2.00 pin

made in China only helps the Chinese!
I have 3 nephews in the armed forces and what I would like to see is that they get the equipment they need when they are risking their lives in this stupid war that as we know today by McSame own lips is a war for oil! We need to get Our Troops home and stop the stupid distractions!