Patriotism

From The Washington Post:

INDEPENDENCE, Mo., June 30 -- Dogged by persistent rumors questioning his belief in country, Sen. Barack Obama journeyed to Middle America on Monday to lay out his vision of patriotism, conceding that he has learned in this presidential campaign that "the question of who is -- or is not -- a patriot all too often poisons our political debate."

"Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given," Obama said in the 29-minute address to about 1,150 people crowded into a gymnasium at the Truman Memorial Building, named for former president Harry S. Truman. "It was how I was raised. It was what propelled me into public service. It is why I am running for president. And yet at times over the last 16 months, my patriotism has been challenged -- at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for."

Obama's speech came on the same day that his rival for the White House, Sen. John McCain, pushed back hard against criticism of his own record as a Navy flier and a prisoner of war. On Sunday, retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark questioned McCain's qualifications for the White House. "He hasn't held executive responsibility," Clark said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president."

Obama rebuked that line of attack Monday, acknowledging McCain by name in saluting veterans "who have endured physical torment in service to our country."

"No further proof of such sacrifice is necessary," he said. "And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides." In a statement, a spokesman for the senator from Illinois said that Obama "rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark."

I guess that wasn't the Wesley Clark he's known for all these years.

Polls have shown that a small but statistically significant slice of the electorate continues to question Obama's patriotism, especially in white, working-class regions.

Democrats act as though the issue of patriotism was infinitely nuanced and intricately complex it is not. Patriotism simply means that you love your country - just as it is and that you support your country - just as it is. Nothing more and nothing less.

If you hate your country and think that it is evil then you are not a patriot.

Being a patriot is not always a good thing. German patriots in the Second World War were bad people because they were loving and supporting Hitler's Reich in all its deeds, including the holocaust. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn could not be considered a Soviet patriot in that he hated the Soviet Union although he loved (and loves) Russia fiercely.

One of the fundamental characteristics of a patriot is that when his nation goes to war he supports it and does all in his power to ensure victory. In the buildup to the war if he thinks it is a bad idea then he speaks his mind and does everything he can to convince his countrymen that the war is a bad idea but once the decision has been made and the troops are engaged with the enemy the patriot's mind turns exclusively to thoughts of victory.

The classic example of this is Charles Lindbergh. In the days before WWII Lindbergh opposed America's entry into the war because he supported the Nazi's political and racial ideology and because he didn't believe that the Axis could be defeated. His opposition to the war was so strident and vocal that it cost him his colonel's commission in the US Army Air Corps. However when war was declared Lindbergh did everything in his power to help the US achieve victory, even risking his life by flying combat missions as a "civilian consultant". This is because Lindbergh was a true patriot.

The true patriot does not have to think that his country is perfect and the true patriot can and should work to make his nation a better place. However the patriot would be content to live in his country even if he knew that it would never change because even though he knows that it could be better he still loves it just the way it is.

This is one of the key differences between the genuine patriot and the left-wing pseudo-patriot. The pseudo-patriot does not love his nation as it is. What the pseudo-patriot loves is a vision, which exists only in his and other like-minded people's heads, of what the country could become if only they were in charge and empowered to remake it into a completely different place than it is right now.

This is the real meaning of HOPE and CHANGE.

Phony Patriots

Christopher G Adamo has a good summary and analysis of the phony "Phony Soldier" contraversy up on The American Thinker:

Smarting from the public relations disaster of the Betray us ad, a Soros-funded group, Media Matters, ginned up a fake scandal to demonstrate to those who rely on the mainstream media for their news, that "both sides do it."

Congressional and Senate Democrats, along with the entire liberal political cabal, have been in a staged uproar ever since last week when Limbaugh made reference to Jesse McBeth and Scott Thomas Beauchamp who, adorning themselves with fraudulent credentials as members in good standing of the United States military, have been caught in blatant fraud, as they seek to make a case against the war.Rush Limbaugh's attackers have intentionally mischaracterized his criticism of such individuals as an assault the U.S. armed forces, asserting that he derided any troops who oppose the war as "phony soldiers."

In truth, he did no such thing, and his accusers know it. But why should they hesitate to lie about his words when they have gotten so much political mileage in the past few years by lying about virtually every other aspect of the terror war, the Republican Party, the military, and conservatism in general?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-NV) reached a nauseating level of sanctimony in his effort to both prove that Democrats "care about the troops" (at least those who fabricate excuses for America's surrender) while attacking Limbaugh and talk radio. Look to Democrats to invoke this latest manufactured firestorm as damming proof of the need to resurrect the "Fairness Doctrine."

But Reid tipped his hand by asserting that Republicans ought to get on the bandwagon of imaginary outrage. Any time liberals begin plugging the bipartisan thing they are really looking for cover and validation from cowardly GOP members.

Reid knows full well that he is lying, and that his principled opposition knows that he is lying. He considers his target audience, Middle America, stupid and gullible. Here Reid hopes to make his case stick, at least among those dependent on the likes of CNN, NBC, or the New York Times for its news.

Conversely, the shamelessness and brazenness of Reid's lies stand as proof that he and his political supporters understand and accept such fraud as an inherent and viable component of the liberal-Democrat playbook.

Of course it is hardly a news flash that the fake anguish expressed by Democrats over this contrived controversy is merely a continuation of the full-throated lies being proliferated by the Moveon.org/Democrat Party/Old media spin machine. The facts of this situation are as available as they are inarguable. They are also inconvenient to the left. So to keep their own story going, Democrat mouthpieces will simply continue to ignore them.

When the truth is revealed, as it eventually will be, no liberal retractions or apologies will be forthcoming. The liberal political apparatus will simply move on to its next target to be smeared, knowing full well that it will never be held accountable for this, or any other deception.

In truth, Limbaugh was very specific as to which "phony soldiers" he was referring. For Jesse McBeth, the moniker clearly fits. He was drubbed out of the military during boot camp (after only forty four days to be precise), but then went on to claim he had been a member of the Special Forces and under such false credentials delivered a plethora of fabricated stories, deriding the military and the mission. He was prominent in the media for a time.

Likewise Beauchamp, who did in fact serve overseas, but whose fabricated fables of abuse and atrocity have been thoroughly refuted by the rest of his outfit.

Limbaugh never even went so far as to include among the phonies Senator and former presidential wannabe John Kerry (D.-MA), whose entire "tour of duty" in Vietnam exceeded McBeth's enlistment by only two and a half months. And that brief Southeast Asian visit netted him three Purple Hearts under highly dubious circumstances.

Of course if Kerry's version of the affair is correct, he could permanently put the matter to rest while completely discrediting his critics simply by releasing his military records, which, to date, he steadfastly refuses to do.

Against this murky backdrop, Democrats on Capitol Hill find an occasion in which they can wave their flags and laud their commitment to God, Country, and the troops, or at least those troops who concoct stories which discredit the terror war and the President's strategy to win it. Such people certainly deserve and receive the unbridled adoration and support of the Democrats.

But perhaps the most telling aspect of this latest offensive is the liberal characterization of Limbaugh, on several occasions just this past week, as "unpatriotic." This is quite an accusation coming from people who insist that the most heinous crime any conservative can commit is to "question the patriotism" of America's leftists as they deride the troops, while crediting America's enemies with every rightness of motive and strategy.

Here's the thing about patriotism. If you constantly have to run arond telling everyone how patriotic you are then you are almost certainly not a true patriot.

Here is the deffinition of "true patriot": A true patriot is someone who loves his country exactly the way it is. That doesn't mean that he thinks his country is perfect, nothing made by man is or ever will be, but he loves his country warts and all.

The phony patriot doesn't love his country exactly the way it is. He may claim to love his country, but what he really loves is a picture, which exists only in his head, of what the country could become if only he, or people exactly like him, were in charge. In other words he really loves himself, not his nation.