Must be a massive blow to Obama, he's failed to toe the right-wing line vis-a-vis patriotism.  They are the experts.  ROFL.  

Dick Cheney, a 5 time deferment award winner wears a flag pin.  Which leads to me to this hunch: There are far more morons who wear such pins as do not.

Sheesh.

They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

"First he kicked his American flag pin to the curb"???  Um, did Doofy or whatever it's name is see him do this?  If so, I'd love to see the images.  Oh wait, there aren't any since he never did.  I guess Fox still maintains it's image as "fairly unbalanced".; unhinged is more like it.  Too bad the BO campaign won't likely challenge these useless turds on their lies and groundless venom.

Seriously, does the NYT Op-Ed page even have editors? When a columnist of any leaning just happens to repeat one party's talking points of the day in his column, there needs to be an editor with the intelligence to notice and the authority to pull the writer aside and say, "This is crap and you know it and we're not going to run it. Give me 800 words on [writer's default topic of expertise] today maybe by next week you'll have thought of something interesting to say about [talking points]."

I have cringed, though, at some of the symbolism around Obama and the flag. He doesn't want to wear the damn lapel pin? Fine: In political circles, the flag lapel pin is something very close to an a-hole detector. (They were out of flags the day I went to buy a lapel pin, so I often have the Great Seal eagle in my lapel. During CPAC I had several besuited conservatives offer to buy it from me on the Metro, so even by Washington standards I must look like the king of all conservative a-holes. But I digress.) The point is, he needed a better, more aggressive explanation. "We need to end the false patriotism of waving the flag and return to the patriotism of our fathers, the patriotism of standing for America, defending the Constitution, and working for the American people." Something assertive, like that.

Patriotism may be the last refuge of the scoundrel, but conservatives are scoundrels and they've pretty much run out of other refuges. So this line of attack was to be expected, and answers to it anticipated.

Also, Republican politicians in particular are serial violators of flag etiquette as defined by the U.S. Flag Code. I would love for a Democrat at a debate, any Democrat, just once to cite chapter and verse on the proper display of the American flag, hold up a photo of the Republican speaking in front of a Flag Code-violating display, and ask his or her opponent why he doesn't respect the American flag.

Frighteningly, I can see this gaining traction.  It will be part of a larger narrative that Obama is "not one of us."  And you can use your imagination about who "us" is and how the message is formed.  It starts out with the pin and the National Anthem pose but then it brings in the fact that he grew up in Indonesia for while, has an alienating name that sounds like BOTH of the GOP's favorite bogeymen, Osama and Saddam Hussein, and oh yeah, he's black.

And the problem the Obama campaign - and most of is for that matter - have to overcome is this:  most people think that having a magnetic ribbon on the back of their car really means they support the troops.

How about, "I always carry the flag.  You just can't see it because it's in my heart"?

Maybe that'll shut the bastards up.

It's Steve Doocy! Well, as Noam points out , it might as well be Doocy, since today's Bill Kristol

Now that the Far Right is comfortable attacking Obama - because they see others doing it - Barack has a terrific chance for a landslide. Independents and moderates will be repelled by Kristol, Brooks, Will, and others who are going to use their erudition to tear Obama down. George Will has the same message as Laura Ingraham, he just uses obscure historical references to make his points.

And these mean-spirited attacks on his oratorical skills, and the portrayal of Obama supporters as sheep...bring it on.

Just as a sidenote:  a friend and colleague of mine has three stickers on her rear windshield, two "Regime Change Begins at Home" slogans from 2004 and, between them, one that says "I'm the Proud Parent of an American Soldier."  The two "Regime Change . . ." stickers represent her left-Democratic and anti-war politics, and the one in the middle is for her son, who serves in the U.S. Army and was deployed to Iraq.  He was so embarrassed about her driving her car onto the base when she visited him in Fort Lewis that she put on the "I'm the Proud Parent . . ." decal to assuage his feelings.  She also pointed out that

(a) although she profoundly disagreed with the war, she was proud of him and wanted to support him however she could now that he'd made the dcision to join the military, and

(b) that as he kept saying how he was going to fight for American values and freedoms, he should chill out and respect her right to put whatever the hell she wanted on her rear windshield.

Oh, and she drives a Volvo.

ironyroad said:

Oh, and she drives a Volvo.

Swedish stooge.  J/k!

anonevent  said:

" most people think that having a magnetic ribbon on the back of their car really means they support the troops."

That reminds me what a cousin of mine said a while back.  He quipped that if these people really supported the troops, they'd at least put on a sticker that used adhesive and would rip up the paint if

removed.   "Have some skin in the game at least!" he said.  I couldn't stop laughing but I think

he's onto something there.  It would be great to call these idiots that wear their patriotism on their

sleeves for a change.  Have Obama challenge Mr. Straight Talk during a debate about what the

flag code says about flag displays and watch him flounder.  Sleazy but it should be fun to watch and

turn the tables on these chicken hawks.

"could the American people, by November, decide that for all his impressive qualities, Obama tends too much toward the preening self-regard of Bill Clinton, the patronizing elitism of Al Gore and the haughty liberalism of John Kerry?"

He may look good now, but he may turn out to be THE FRANKENSTEIN  OF DEMOCRATIC NOMINEES !!  

Rhubarbs' suggestions are right on the mark, and I'm confident that Obama will be able to handle it.    

stgla, you've done the best job of stating, in simple terms, what we've all been discussing for the past few days. It will be interesting to see how he deals with these attacks.

Look, this is why it was so unbelievably stupid of Michelle Obama to say what she said. We could see this Kristol emission coming a mile down the pike. When you say or print things as dumb as those we've seen from Michelle Obama and Bill Keller, you're simply writing the talking points for blowhards like Kristol and Limbaugh.