Not Questioning Their Patriotism

Lileks does a nice riff on "bitter-gate:"

I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.

Nice words, but I think the sage from Minneapolis might be pulling his punches a bit. My brother (the mad lefty one) had an interesting coda in a recent email discussion (riff, coda, got something going here...) He said he was upset because "the flag is now a Republican symbol" and a moderate relative agreed.

I didn't respond to that point but I have been thinking about it for quite a while. It is not that my lefty friends lack patriotism per se, but the ones I know are completely uncomfortable with the idea of American exceptionalism. They have ceded the flag as a symbol to those who do believe.

I tell a good friend "we liberated tens of millions from Communism," and he says "yeah, but what about propping up Somoza and Pinochet and Marcos?" I think of the Ken Burns documentary on WWII. I love the guy's work, but he juxtaposes the Bataan Death March with Jim Crow laws and restricted liberties for black soldiers. Yeah, Ken, I guess we're both bad. Another friend loves to bring up Japanese Internment camps. And don't ever ever ever get a liberal started on Indians, Native Americans Indigenous Americans.

They think I'm a jingoist, but I am comfortable appreciating this country's achievements "warts and all." Senator Obama famously refused to wear a flag pin. I don't say that he -- or his Marin County listeners -- don't love this country, but it's not questioning anybody's patriotism to point out how uncomfortable most of them are with displays of patriotism.

Gotta go now, Team America World Police is on cable...

Politics Posted by jk at April 15, 2008 12:16 PM