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Richard Cohen's columns have appeared on the op-ed page of The Washington Post since 1984. He joined The Post in 1968 after attending the Columbia ...
Read more about Richard Cohen.
Richard Cohen's columns have appeared on the op-ed page of The Washington Post since 1984. He joined The Post in 1968 after attending the Columbia ...
Read more about Richard Cohen.
A True American Can Choose to Eschew the Flag Pin
Richard Cohen
Sometimes I think the best thing about Barack Obama is that little
empty space on his lapel. It is where other politicians wear their
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. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, wearing the pin had become de rigueur for politicians. Obama too had worn the pin but had taken 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 if 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 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.
Many people will read a lot of meaning into Obama's refusal to wear the pin. Some will see it as a lack of patriotism, an emotional distance from the country that has served him so well. Others, such as me, will see it as an expression of cool, the statement of a candidate who wants to be president but not at the cost to his intellectual integrity. And still others (me again) will see it as Obama's push-back, his reluctance to do something simply because it is demanded of him.
An allergy to cant can be an admirable quality in a politician, although not necessarily a politically smart one. Obama, for example, is right to label Hillary Clinton's proposal to have the government lift the gas tax this summer as "a classic Washington gimmick." Still, gimmicks like this win votes.
If Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee, such eruptions of common sense could cost him. For instance, he got an A on my Ethanol Test of Political Integrity for telling Tim Russert that "if it turns out that we've got to make changes in our ethanol policy to help people get something to eat, then that's got to be the step we take." Such candor may not go down well in the Farm Belt. Obama did not exactly denounce government ethanol subsidies and he did praise the biofuel as "an important transitional tool for us to start dealing with our long-term energy crisis," but what was refreshingly missing was the usual pander about the consummate (and mostly fictional) virtues of ethanol.
This column would itself be an exercise in pander if it did not acknowledge that, on occasion, Obama can practice the old politics with the best of them. He's been all over the place on gun control and he's been backpedaling and fudging about Jeremiah Wright for some time. After all, it was back in January that the Obama campaign was informed that Wright had praised Louis Farrakhan to high heaven, ignoring the Nation of Islam leader's anti-Semitism -- and not just recently, as Obama has said.
Still, it is bracing to see a presidential candidate recoil, for the most part, from the orthodoxies of pander. In this regard, the lack of a flag pin has become an important sign of Obama's desire to think for himself. For all it says about Obama, I salute it.
========
Richard Cohen's e-mail address is cohenr@washpost.com
(c) 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
This news arrived on: 05/06/2008
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Posted Comments:
05-07-2008 11:52
satch wrote:
flags:
Since the flag pin came off the stage is lined with Old Glory when Obama speaks! Do I detect some hypocracy here somewhere?
05-07-2008 11:52
Average American wrote:
Flag Pin
Obama not wearing a flag pin is as disrespectful as a woman not wearing a cover on her head in a Catholic Church. We are in the new millennium, time changes everything eventually.
05-07-2008 11:51
Average American wrote:
Flag Pin
Obama not wearing a flag pin is as disrespectful as a woman not wearing a cover on her head in a Catholic Church. We are in the new millennium, time changes everything eventually.
05-07-2008 10:32
chufow wrote:
Flag Pin
Oh, please! Obama could wear the flag pin AND still have the flag in his heart, just like a lot of us other Americans do, politicians or not. I don't buy his reason for not wearing the flag pin any more than I do that he sat in a church for over 20 years and didn't know about or hear the racist and anti-American rantings of his one-time so-called pastor, spiritual advisor, mentor and surrogate father, Jeremiah Wright.
Hmmm, maybe Obama found out that Black Liberation theology somehow forbids wearing or showing honor to our flag and that's the real reason he stopped wearing it. Who knows with this guy? He changes his "position" on things over and over again, while saying a lot that sounds nice but really doesn't mean anything when you actually parse his words for any real substance.
Cohen says, "...it is bracing to see a... candidate recoil...from the orthodoxies of pander. In this regard, the lack of a flag pin has become an important sign of Obama's desire to think for himself. For all it says about Obama, I salute it."
Moose manure! Obama panders all the time, just like any other politician. He just panders to the far Left, that's all, while at the same time being dismissive of and condescending toward "the masses" of small town Americans for ignorantly "clinging" to their faith and firearms in times of trouble.
Barack Obama is probably a Black Liberation Marxist who's assuredly an arrogant, I'm-so-perfect-and-pretty elitist snob, to boot. He may actually have stopped wearing the flag pin simply because it was punching holes in his millionaire suits. So much for "convictions" and a lack of pandering, one way or the other.
If you're going to salute anything, Cohen, make sure it's the American flag -- for that flag symbolizes the country which gives you the freedom and guarantees you the right to write your tripe. Maybe you could get Obama to salute along with you.
Hmmm, maybe Obama found out that Black Liberation theology somehow forbids wearing or showing honor to our flag and that's the real reason he stopped wearing it. Who knows with this guy? He changes his "position" on things over and over again, while saying a lot that sounds nice but really doesn't mean anything when you actually parse his words for any real substance.
Cohen says, "...it is bracing to see a... candidate recoil...from the orthodoxies of pander. In this regard, the lack of a flag pin has become an important sign of Obama's desire to think for himself. For all it says about Obama, I salute it."
Moose manure! Obama panders all the time, just like any other politician. He just panders to the far Left, that's all, while at the same time being dismissive of and condescending toward "the masses" of small town Americans for ignorantly "clinging" to their faith and firearms in times of trouble.
Barack Obama is probably a Black Liberation Marxist who's assuredly an arrogant, I'm-so-perfect-and-pretty elitist snob, to boot. He may actually have stopped wearing the flag pin simply because it was punching holes in his millionaire suits. So much for "convictions" and a lack of pandering, one way or the other.
If you're going to salute anything, Cohen, make sure it's the American flag -- for that flag symbolizes the country which gives you the freedom and guarantees you the right to write your tripe. Maybe you could get Obama to salute along with you.
05-07-2008 10:05
gumboboy wrote:
American Flag Pin
Symbols of patriotism are just that symbols. What matters is what's in the heart. South Dakota's corn growers will see that Sen. Obama is genuine about the welfare of this country, not just one segment of it's population. It takes a strong leader to admit that, and that's why he gets my vote, from the oil producing state of Louisiana.
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