Richard Cohen: Pins and Panders - Obama Wears His Independence On His Lapel

[Hissyspit]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/05/AR2008050502065.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

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. Richard Nixon, for instance, sported one while undermining the Constitution and, in private, cursing all sorts of minority groups. And history does not record whether his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, took his off on the solemn occasions when he received bribes in the White House. Somehow, the flag pin did not improve the character of either man.

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.

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[BeyondGeography]

1. One of Obama's colleagues wore a flag pin to the bathroom

[melody]

2. If he wears a flag pin, he's damned ... if he doesn't, he's damned

In other words, they just want an excuse to damn him.

[Berry Cool]

3. Nice piece.

What people wear doesn't always have jack-anything to do with how they feel or how they behave. I mean, Ann Coulter always wears a Christian cross whenever she's spewing venom that would make the Baby Jesus cry.

[SeattleGirl]

5. You said it, Berry!

And that kind of crap really pisses me off. I think it is so much better to ACT patriotic, rather than just to DRESS in a way that people consider to be patriotic.

[SeattleGirl]

4. And amen to that!

I was talking earlier with a friend about how, when I was in college, one of the biggest things my professors encouraged was learning to think for oneself, to not just go along to get along. And that's what I see in Obama, and I'm very glad for it! This country is insane right now, and as the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, and expecting different results. I'm tired of the insanity. I want a new way, and I think a lot of other people to, too.

[lligrd]

6. Yep, To Me These Days The Flag Pin Reminds Me Of

the swastika. Nationalism at the cost of reason and humanity.