Tribune asks: When did Obama stop wearing a flag pin?Answer: Who gives a flying fig?
From comments to that John McCormick Swamp post (which deserves to stay in the swamp):
TRUE patriots have the US flag tatooed on their foreheads.
Obama is clearly a traitor.
I am a Republican, I don’t plan to vote for Obama, and even I don’t care. It doesn’t matter a whit whether he wears a pin. He is absolutely correct in that.
And the fact that he is not wearing it is not in the slightest newsworthy. Your editor needs to find some useful work for you to do.
Posted by: Paul B | October 4, 2007 4:19 PM
Please don’t take those admonitions as a cue to go back to talking about Hillary’s boobs or laugh or whatever else is completely irrelevant to our country’s future (and why are there hardly any media stories about Mitt Romney’s $300 haircuts or Rudy Giuliani’s pricey lingerie and evening wear?).
UPDATE: Apparently, wearing a little pin actually is a good substitute for seared-into-your-heart patriotism … who knew? Mark W. Johnson obligingly links like a lemming. One wonders if Mr. Johnson and the LGF bloggers wear stars-and-stripes underoos so they can sit on the flag all day while typing their drivel.
What’s next? Complaints that his ties are insufficiently American, his deodorant doesn’t smell like apple pies and his handkerchief contains a secret code for treacherous thoughts?
It’s not like conserv-o-partisans haven’t already made up stuff about his church or his grammar school of all things… maybe they’re running out of things to complain about when it comes to Sen. Obama, ya think?
UPDATE 2: Your Sun-Times’ Obamarama columnist Lynn Sweet reveals…
- National media gobbling up non-story about apparel accessories like kids in a candy store with a fiver burning a hole in their wee li’l pockets.
- Iowa media snoring because they’re grown-ups and it’s a friggin’ non-story.
- Retired Gen. Tony McPeak has endorsed Sen. Obama and opines that this pin “business” is stooopid. From Ms. Sweet:“I think the Senator understands that patiriotism [sic] is hard work,” McPeak said and sticking a pin on is “facile” and “easy.”What matters, said MPeak, [sic] is what “comes from the heart, not the clotihing [sic]…the difference between petty symbolism and real judgement.
Ms. Sweet also gives some background on General McPeak…
McPeak, a combat veteran who is outspoken in his opposition to the Iraq war said what makes Obama different is his “life experience” which “I think prepares him to deal with questions (of) international security.” He downplayed “this business about the lapel pin.” McPeak said he met Obama after one of his Senate staffers called him to arrange a meeting about six or eight months ago.
Guess all that makes Gen. McPeak a “phony soldier” according to the draft-dodging Rush Limbaugh and the nonsensical conservative-partisans defending Rush’s indefensible troop bashing. Oh, but wait, we’re not supposed to talk about generals at all, are we?
UPDATE 2a: Lynn Sweet provides more background on Obama-endorser (and recovering Republican) Gen. Tony McPeak — former Air Force Chief of Staff, 1996 Bob Dole and 2000 George Bush campaigner, opponent of ill-defined and open-ended military adventures based on lies…
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October 5, 2007 at 9:26 am
jerry 101
I like HarveyHaave’s comment.
Made me snicker.
Good snark.
First they go after obama for not wearing a tie, now they blast him for a pin?
Beh. At least they aren’t getting their panties in a bunch over Hillary’s cleavage anymore.
October 8, 2007 at 1:49 am
Mark
Thanks for the link to my blog. You helped my Technorati rating. By the way I thought you might have missed the over the top right wing commentary by Neil Stienberg in the Sun Times today pretty much summing up my thoughts on the Flag Pin debate. And in case you are wondering I served in the Army National Guard for 9 years in the Infantry.
Your Soon to be Favorite Lemming,
MWJ
Steinbreg’s Article……………
Then there’s all this handshaking
The image I have is of Barack Obama, drawing away from a baby held up for him to kiss on the campaign trail.
“Yeesh!” he scowls. “I’m not touching my lips to that! Babies are silly with germs. It would be like kissing a toilet seat.”
On one hand, that’s probably correct — babies spend their days sucking their toes and crawling around on the floor. It’s not like they’re sterile.
On the other hand, you run for president, you’ve got to kiss babies. It’s part of the package.
Thus it’s surprising how firmly Obama planted his foot in the mudhole when asked about his lack of a flag pin on his lapel.
“I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest,” he said.
Ouch.
Have the pins become a hallmark of armchair patriots and shyster televangelists? Absolutely. Is it all too easy to slap one on while ducking the hard work of improving this country? Also true.
But you can’t diss the pin, or rather the countless men and women who wear it as a sincere show of patriotism. I thought of Ed McElroy, dean of Chicago PR agents, past national commander of the Catholic War Veterans, fingering the flag pin on his lapel, patriotic tears misting his fine blue eyes. What does he make of Obama’s position?
“What the hell’s wrong with him?” said McElroy, 82. “You don’t deny the flag, you wear it, especially if you’re a public official.
“I wear the American flag on my lapel with my national commander pin,” he continued. “I have told many public officials, ‘Put that American flag on your lapel. You’re not going to hide my flag, are you?’
“I went into the service because of the American flag, because that is my symbol of being an American.”
He said there are a lot of soldiers who gave their lives for that flag.
“These people didn’t have a chance in the world,” he said. “All for what? The flag!”
October 8, 2007 at 9:11 am
robnesvacil
Mr. Johnson,
A link to the silly Steinberg column would’ve sufficed.
I find it odd that the set of folks who are complaining that a candidate doesn’t wear a pin are the same folks who ripped out literally tons of Kerry-Edwards signs in 2004 and threw them on the ground — thus desecrating the US flags imprinted on those signs.
And no, you’re not my favorite new lemming. Lemmings are like kids — love ‘em all in their own unique ways. Besides, the fact you add little discourse to political debate means there are others out there who are actually much more interesting. Your links to material are usually little more than echoes, with the occasional “Polly wanna cracker” parrot-job thrown in.
Takes all kinds to make the world go ’round I guess.