Striving towards a more perfect Union

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16493.html

Striving towards a more perfect Union
Posted August 8th, 2008 at 4:30 pm



About once a week, far-right blogs throw a fit about one manufactured controversy or another, usually to no avail. This week’s outrage, apparently, was Barack Obama’s response to an Indiana girl’s question about why he’s running for president.

“America,” Obama said, “is no longer what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, ‘I don’t want that future for my children.’”

It struck me as a pretty innocuous thing to say, but more than 300 conservative blogs are outraged — or, at a minimum, feigning outrage — as is Rush Limbaugh. Apparently, Obama’s response was insufficiently patriotic. The title from the YouTube poster reads, “Barack Obama To Little Girl: America’s Not So Great.”

I see. So, if one believes the nation could be better, and has fallen short of late of some of the greatness we’ve achieved in years past, then he/she necessarily sees the United States as less than great now. Got it.

Of course, as Steve M. noted, that might cause Ronald Reagan some trouble, given that one of his 1980 campaign slogans was, “Let’s make America great again.”

snip//

A few months earlier, McCain told Fox News, “I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her company.”

What’s wrong with that? Nothing in particular; I know what McCain meant (that he began to appreciate America more when he lost his freedom during Vietnam). But, again, one can easily imagine the right’s unhinged reaction if Obama had said something similar. (”What do you mean you didn’t really love America? Real Americans always love America….”)

The point isn’t that McCain and/or Reagan are unpatriotic; the point is Obama’s remarks were harmless and uncontroversial. He loves America, so he wants it to be even better than it is today. That’s not unpatriotic; that’s the opposite of being unpatriotic.

Weekly right-wing freak-outs are not only tiresome, they’re embarrassing.