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| Stars, Stripes and Scoundrels: Dems use flag as fig leaf
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Posted: 03/31/2008
Stars, Stripes and Scoundrels: Dems use flag as fig leaf
by Daniel Clark
If it's true that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then that
explains the tendency of liberal Democrats to seek shelter behind the
Stars and Stripes.
When Barack Obama tried to distance himself from the anti-American
ramblings of his spiritual advisor, Jeremiah Wright, he enlisted the help
of not one, but eight American flags. He must have figured that, with all
those banners standing behind him, he'd sound patriotic no matter what he
actually said. That was apparently an accurate assessment, in fact, as few
accounts of his widely lauded speech have bothered to note that he
indirectly blamed Wright's hatred of America on America itself.
This is the same Sen. Obama, remember, who had once worn an American flag
pin on his lapel, but removed it in protest of the war in Iraq. The war
continues, and so does Obama's protesting it; nevertheless, he has changed
his mind and embraced the American flag, now that he needs it as a
security blanket.
Bill Clinton affected a similar reconciliation back in 1994. When he'd
been a student at Oxford during the Vietnam War, he had protested against
his own country on foreign soil. He had by that point been drafted, but
had received an unprecedented deferment in exchange for an insincere
promise to join the ROTC. In a letter justifying his duplicity to his ROTC
director, Col. Eugene Holmes, Clinton told the former POW and Bataan Death
March survivor about his "loathing the military." Solipsistically unaware
of the insult he was delivering, he wrote in closing, "Merry Christmas."
While Clinton was running for president in 1992, Col. Holmes warned of
"the imminent danger to our country of a draft-dodger becoming
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States." In an
affidavit detailing the ways in which Clinton had misled him, the colonel
explained, "These actions cause me to question both his patriotism and his
integrity."
This personal history made President Clinton's presence at Normandy for
the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion more than a little awkward. As
usual, he figured it was nothing that a little superficial contrivance
couldn't fix. Using an American soldier's grave as the setting for a
photo-op, he picked up a small flag that had obviously been left there on
the ground as a prop. He then unfurled and planted it, in a thoroughly
unconvincing moment of faux-spontaneity.
When it comes to cynical use of the American flag for political cover,
nobody can top Sen. John Kerry. When he was with Vietnam Veterans Against
the War, Kerry co-authored a book whose cover featured a gang of hippies
hoisting an upside-down flag, in a mock Iwo Jima pose. Included in its
pages was the false testimony he infamously related to the Senate in 1971,
in which he slandered his fellow soldiers with accusations of murder, rape
and mutilation. Kerry had also thrown away his military ribbons in
protest, and secretly met with the Vietcong in Paris, as a representative
of the VVAW.
By the time Kerry ran for president a few decades later, he tried his best
to present himself instead as Audie Murphy, Sergeant York and Popeye, all
rolled into one. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he comically
surrounded himself with American flags, including an enormous one hanging
directly above the podium. "We call her Old Glory," he lectured. "For us,
that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe
in." Whatever desecrating the flag had said about who he is and what he
believes in, he didn't explain.
Like Obama and Clinton, Sen. Kerry was using the American flag as a fig
leaf, to conceal his naked hostility toward the United States. For these
three, Old Glory plays the same role as the betrayed wives of sleazy
politicians like Jim McGreevey, Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer, and . well,
Bill Clinton. Like those women, American flags have been repeatedly placed
next to their unfaithful mates, as if to signify acceptance of them,
despite their faults. The image being presented is that it is the flags
that are endorsing these liberal Democrats, instead of the reverse. Unlike
the politician's wives, however, the flags cannot consent to this
degradation.
That's why these men are able to manipulate our national symbol in a
manner apparently inconsistent with their true beliefs, without
considering themselves to be hypocrites. For them to use the Stars and
Stripes to mop up their political messes is simply another of their usual
desecrations.
-- Daniel Clark is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance. The New
Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers,
journalists and grass-roots media outlets.
Distributed by www.ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com
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Stars & Stripes, God's colors?
| Posted On: 04/02/08 09:53:54 AM |
Age 48, CA |
Does Christ fly the American Flag? Is Christ returning on board Air Force 1?
I believe we place too much on the flag.
Rome believed it had a divine duty to rule the world. Jesus had nothing to say to the Romans. His only words to Pilate was "You would have no such power unless it were given from above" In other words, "Your Empire exists only for as long as The Father allows it." For the last 7 years, the neocons have been "The scoundrels using the flag as a fig leaf" Thier talk of liberating the world has been the same propaganda the Communists used when they were imposing thier own form of liberation upon the world. Both side hide behind the flag.
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What is Patriotic?
| Posted On: 04/01/08 06:19:23 PM |
Age 50, MN |
Was Clinton right about Vietnam? Was Obama right about Iraq? I think it's even more unpatriotic to destroy our constitution with unconstitutional actions and then pretend to be a patriot. To do what George Bush did in his time "serving" (a term that hardly befits what he did) and then become the hawk he did is as disgusting as anything the democrats have done.
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