Obama Shows his 'True' Patriotism

Remember the Flag Pin Controversy where Barack Obama refused to wear the decoration because he thought it had become a "substitute for true patriotism?

Here are his remarks at the time defending his decision not to wear the pin:

You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

"Instead," he said, "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."  (HT: Weekly Standard Blog)

Obama wears sanctimony quite well. But times change - and so do the polls. Evidently, Obama's handlers have seen some fallout from his close friend and pastor Jeremiah Wright's anti-American rants. People might get the wrong idea about Obama. So instead of sanctimony, we get rank hypocrisy. The pin is back:

Evidently a disabled vet handed it to him at this morning’s speech, thereby magically ridding it of the Iraq cooties that had rendered it unfit to grace the chest of the Messiah until today. Read this prescient column from the AJC a few weeks ago predicting that the pin would soon reemerge in the wake of Wright’s “chickens coming home to roost” clip entering near-permanent rotation on cable news. Conservatives naturally were blamed for making an issue of this last fall but in fact Obama’s the one who politicized it by investing the pin with such grandiose meaning that he simply had to stop wearing it in good conscience. No other prominent Democratic critic of the war that I can think of has felt the need to divest him- or herself of the sort of symbolism that those small town yokels whom Obama has such affection for seem to appreciate so much. If anything, the anti-war crowd has always been eager to reclaim the symbolism of the flag to make the point that no one has a monopoly on patriotism. Ah well; it’s all just a byproduct of false consciousness anyway.

Are we take Obama's sudden change of heart as anything else except an extraordinarily cynical political ploy? Bless my socks, no. This is Obama honoring a wounded hero who, because he is probably from some rural area where God, guns, and racism are prevelant, simply can't help the fact he was so stupid as to get caught in evil Bush's war machine, thus giving in to bitterness and wanting Obama to wear the flag pin as a protest statement.

Or something like that.
 
He hasn't been asked a question about the Return of the Pin yet. The press is too busy canonizing him to ask such mundane questions. But I suspect when some poor rube reporter actually has the nerve to broach the subject, his answer will be pretty much what I wrote above sans the sarcasm.

"From ghoulies, and ghosties, and long legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, oh Lord deliver us." (Old Scottish prayer).

One might add: "...and politicians who fake their patriotism."

(Hat Tip: Ed Lasky)