Allow me to state at the outset that I believe that a vast majority of liberals believe themselves to be as patriotic as anyone else and that Republican efforts to portray this or that candidate as “unpatriotic” is wrong.
It is wrong because we cannot gaze into the hearts of our countrymen and establish their true feelings about America. Nor should we even try. A citizen’s relationship with his country is as personal as his relationship with God - and only pharisees in the temple and some TV preachers would have us believe that they love God more than others.
It is silly to say that this liberal or that one does not love this country enough - as if there is a scale on which all American’s patriotic feelings are placed and weighed, the result judged fair or foul according to explicitly subjective criteria.
“Do you put your hand over the heart during the playing of our national anthem?”
“Do you wear a flag pin?”
“Do you say the Pledge of Allegiance?”
If this be the measure of a patriot, gag me. I almost didn’t vote for George Bush #41 in 1988 because of his obsession with making it a requirement for schoolchildren to say the pledge of allegiance. It was embarrassing for any thinking person to watch the elder Bush tour flag factories and otherwise bring the issue up at almost every campaign stop. It was a transparent attempt to place his idea of patriotism above that of anyone else and by extension, accusing his opponent Michael Dukakis of being less patriotic than he.
At the time the Obama flag pin controversy first surfaced, I wrote what I believe to be a logical, sensible defense of liberal patriotism:
I think it is apparent that some on the right love America in a different way than some on the left. Think of the right’s love of country as that of a young man for a hot young woman. The passion of such love brooks no criticism and in their eyes, the woman can do nothing wrong. They place the woman on a pedestal and fail to see any flaws in her beauty, only perfection.
On the other hand, love of country by many liberals is more intellectualized – perhaps the kind of love we might feel for a wife of many years. The white hot passion may be gone and her flaws might drive you up a wall at times. And it is difficult not to dwell on her imperfections But there is still a deep, abiding affection that allows you to love her despite the many blemishes and defects they see.
It isn’t that most on the left love America any less than those on the right. They simply see a different entity – a tainted but beloved object that has gotten better with age.
There is some obvious exaggeration in both definitions but I believe they ring true at a basic level of understanding. It certainly makes it easier to acknowledge Senator Obama’s patriotism which the Washington Post examined today:
“You want to know about my patriotism?” Obama said last week in Chapel Hill, N.C. “My patriotism is rooted in the fact that my story, Michelle’s story, is not possible anywhere else on Earth. That the American dream, despite this country’s imperfections, has always been there. . . . That there are ladders of opportunity that all of us can climb. That we’re all created equal. That we’re all endowed with certain inalienable rights — life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. . . . That we’re willing to shed blood for those liberties, we’re willing to speak out for those liberties. . . . That we can make this country more just and more equal and more prosperous and more unified. That’s why I love this country. That’s why you love this country.”
Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist unaffiliated in the primary, said Obama’s patriotic talk early in the campaign was a shrewd attempt to reshape the debate to guard against a future vulnerability. “In successful campaigns, you recognize your potential liabilities and figure out how to turn them into strengths,” he said.
Obama’s patriotism then, is as exceptional as anyone’s on the right. This stands in stark contrast to other liberals and Democrats who belittle the idea of American exceptionalism or simply refuse to acknowledge it. It doesn’t mean that you are less patriotic if you reject the idea that America is different than anywhere else on earth. But since most Americans share the belief that we are an exceptional people and nation, it is a legitimate campaign issue to point out that a candidate does not share a belief in the same values as most voters.
That avenue of attack is not open to Republicans with Obama. Hence, the creation of non-issues like the flag pin and the demonstrably false issues of his not saying the pledge or putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. They have not resonated with the voter because people aren’t buying it - until now.
Enter Jeremiah Wright and his “damning” America. To ask the question is Reverend Wright a “patriot” or is he a “patriotic” American stretches the notion of love of country far beyond where a vast majority of ordinary voters wish to go. If Wright is patriotic - and indeed, I do not believe him to be, proving an exception to the rule above - then it is a kind of patriotism never before seen in America. Wright’s critique goes far beyond dissent and attacks the very reasons America exists in the first place. Can you hate America and love it at the same time? That’s the kind of nuance only a liberal could embrace.
Obama has a different kind of problem with Wright than any Democrat has had in the past with their own personal patriotism being questioned. And making matters much worse for the candidate are his other radical associations with individuals who, like Wright, have attacked the foundations of American democracy and the existential reasons for America’s being. Unrepentant terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn - who I predict will become a huge problem for the candidate once it is revealed that he lied about the nature and extent of his relationship with those radicals - as well as his close association with other radical figures like PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi and radical Liberation Theology priest and warm friend of Louis Farrakhan Father Michael Phleger raise serious questions not about Obama’s patriotism but rather his values and judgement.
What is it about these people that attracts the candidate? There are just too many radicals in his background not to make this a legitimate question of the campaign. My own personal view - highly speculative - is that Obama is drawn to the certainty of their beliefs as well as their outrage. Obama’s emotional makeup makes it very difficult for him to share the radical’s certainty about their worldview while he yearns for that kind of black and white outlook. And since his own worldview is informed more by his intellect than his gut, he perhaps envies the radicals ability to express their outrage at perceived injustices in America.
A guess to be sure but better than what the candidate has offered as an explanation. And lest someone take me to task for my observation about so many radicals in his past, there is this from the Rolling Stone profile written last year:
This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama’s life, or his politics. The senator “affirmed” his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a “sounding board” to “make sure I’m not losing myself in the hype and hoopla.” Both the title of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright’s sermons. “If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from,” says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, “just look at Jeremiah Wright.”
And the RR profile didn’t even mention Ayers, et.al. It is this “radical background” about which American voters are confused regarding Obama. His heartfelt rhetoric about his love of America cannot be denied. There is nothing about which to disagree with Obama when he talks about our race problems “not defining America” - the first black leader in a long time to make that point. There is nothing to criticize when Obama talks about the American dream and American opportunity and how it is a shared goal of all.
So why, in a Pew Research poll, did only 61% of of voters view Obama as patriotic, compared with 76% for Clinton and 90% for McCain? It can’t be the way that McCain or even Hillary Clinton have been hammering away at his patriotism in ads and in campaign appearances. Hillary has raised the issue that Obama’s associations will be attacked by Republicans in the fall and that because of that, the Illinois Senator is unelectable. But she hasn’t directly criticized him for his relationship with Wright or anyone else. (Update: An emailer reminds me that Clinton said at the Philadelphia debate that the Ayers relationship “raised questions.” - hardly a hard hitting attack.)
Something else is clearly at work and it goes to the heart of how people perceive Barack Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright. Quite simply, voters place themselves in Obama’s shoes and ask themselves if they would act the same way as the candidate has acted for the last 20 years. They ask themselves would they allow an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers host a fundraising event in his home. The left would love to dismiss these concerns as typical ignorance on the part of the yahoos but for good or ill, this is how Obama is being judged. And a significant number of people are coming up with answers detrimental to the candidate’s standing in the polls.
I would love to see a campaign this fall where everyone acknowledged everyone else’s commitment to America and love of country. But Obama’s high minded, patriotic rhetoric will fall flat unless he can explain and thus distance himself from people he made a conscious choice to embrace in one way or another and who give the lie to that pretty talk about patriotism through their poisonous and yes, unpatriotic view of America.
