Of Pins and Patriotism, Part 2

I’m writing from 31,000 feet, on my way home from a week in Rome and Madrid. One of the niceties of traveling abroad is a break from the endless American-centric news cycle at home. But yesterday I happened to catch some footage of Barack Obama in Florida, and I couldn’t help but note that he was wearing a flag pin on his suit jacket lapel.

My initial reaction was disappointment. Obama’s principled disdain for a symbol he characterized as “a substitute for true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to national security” particularly resonated with what I had written on this page in September 2006: “The lapel pin is emblematic of how this administration has chosen to govern: relying on symbolism, slogans and ideology, rather than analysis and reason.”

But the realist in me understands that a candidate can’t win the Presidency on principle alone. And if a shallow and ill-informed electorate wants to judge a candidate based on what he wears, rather than what he thinks and says, then the path of least resistance is to conform. There are more important battles to be fought.

But other than repeat the whispered charges that Obama is somehow not fully American, our media isn’t doing much to uncover the latent nativism behind them. Why is the one Presidential candidate with a non-European surname being questioned about patriotism, when his non-flag pin wearing rivals get a free pass? Why do reporters simply correct the record on his religion, rather than ask why many Americans see the faith of a Presidential candidate’s dad to be a disqualifier? Especially in a country whose founding legend rests on immigrants seeking religious freedom?

Perhaps it’s because not many of the doubters are first-generation native-born Americans themselves. And we’re not a group whose patriotism the rest of America should doubt. We’ve spent quite a bit of time in our ancestral countries, seeing first-hand how the rest of the world lives on a fraction of the material comfort we enjoy at home. Our parents are living examples of the boundless opportunity available to anyone willing to study and work hard. For us, the “American Dream” is hardly a nebulous phrase that the rest of America learns about in sixth grade social studies class.

America could benefit from a healthy dose of this perspective after eight years of a man whose pre-Presidential travels only included visits to London and Mexico. While John McCain and Hillary Clinton might threaten to bomb Iran (to appear funny and tough, respectively), I see some of the damage we’ve wrought in Baghdad and can’t help but think that the buildings look not unlike that my grandparents’ Bombay apartment complex. Filled with real people that are just trying to make a living, but whose home just happened to be in the wrong place in a smart bomb’s targeting processor.

Our current leadership demonstrates how easy it is to put America’s unique combination of boundless resources, entrepreneurial culture, and rule of law to work toward disastrous ends. Perhaps it’s time for someone who is grateful for being able to pin a flag to his breast, rather than someone who does it because he’s known nothing else.

Flag Pin Reporting

My all-time favorite cable news segment is Jon Stewart’s October 2004 appearance on Crossfire:




During the segment, Stewart admonishes hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala for “hurting America” with their predictable, partisan perspectives. “See, the thing is, we need your help,” Stewart pleads. “Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations…You're not too rough on them. You're part of their strategies.”

Fast forward four years. The Iraq War saps a billion dollars from the Treasury every three days, a sixth of the nation doesn’t have health insurance, energy prices are soaring, the economy is troubled and the dollar has tanked. If I was a reporter, I wouldn’t know what to investigate first.

But the television news media’s focus on the irrelevant only continues to sharpen. Since 1996, Bill O’Reilly has demonstrated how to blur the line between news and commentary for a cable news audience. The secret of O’Reilly’s success is his knack for overstating the importance of those topics that get his viewers’ blood boiling. There’s no war on Christmas, nor are kids being kidnapped from bus stops each morning, but watching O’Reilly’s show, you wouldn’t know it. O’Reilly plays his part perfectly: David Letterman once asked him: “You’re doing it because you know it will be entertaining, right?” For a split second, O’Reilly couldn’t help but crack a smile.

While I do find lectures on Christian values from a married man who settled a sexual harassment suit entertaining, what troubles me is that O’Reilly’s show (and his offspring on other news channels) is increasingly being passed off as reporting. O’Reilly calls himself a journalist. But reporting that the greeter at the Paramus Best Buy says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” isn’t reporting. It’s repeating. More specifically, repeating the irrelevant.

And the slide towards stupid hardly began with O’Reilly: In 1958, Edward R. Murrow told a gathering of news directors that:

“Television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: Look now, pay later.”

But rather than let O’Reilly make his money and have his fun, the rest of the media is also playing to the lowest common denominator. Flag Pin Reporting, to coin a phrase. In this world, the trivial is elevated to the central, simply because it’s easiest to report. Is Obama an elitist? Is McCain too old? Was Hillary under sniper fire? Meanwhile, in the richest country in the world, millions of citizens continue to toil under a system that would instantly bankrupt them if were unlucky enough to fall seriously ill.

So to Bill, Keith, Wolf and the rest of the gang: while you’ve focused on the irrelevant, we’ve elected a comically incompetent President (twice!), suffer under a spineless Congress, and have no idea how to escape a war we were misled into. Don’t think for a moment that politicians don’t see a golden opportunity to sell their wares through you as you gladhandle them to maintain access. Recall the memo written by a former Cheney communications director that answered why her boss loved to visit with Tim Russert on Meet the Press: to “control [the] message,” she coldly and candidly typed.

So by all means, milk the Reverends Wright and Robertson outrage machine for all it’s worth. But occasionally, take the time to ask the tough questions, those questions that don’t neatly fit into the two-minute, left vs. right paradigm. How do we guarantee a basic level of healthcare for all Americans at a reasonable cost? How do we address the root causes that drive Arabs to kill themselves to kill us? How do we reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Reinforce the value of education in our kids? Pay to maintain and upgrade the tracks and bridges that our grandparents built for us?

Now that would be looking out for us.