Symbols Mean Something, Senator

Senator Barack Obama took off his American flag lapel pin.

Stating that from now on he will speak about the meaning of the flag rather than wear it, the Democratic Presidential hopeful has obviously failed to grasp the importance of symbols, particularly on the part of one who would be President. Wearing the flag, it would seem, would present even MORE opportunities to explain what the flag means than taking it off.

In fact, the candidate symbolically declared today why he is unfit to be President in one simple symbolic act.

Men who would be President of our country do not shun symbols of our flag but embrace them.

What does this act say, for example, to Kim Jong Ill, or Fidel Castro and the oppressed who live under Cuban Communism, or to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? A would-be President of the United States expresses disdain for wearing the symbol of his country? No doubt the act gives rise to the notion on the part of the tyrants of the world that Obama is ashamed of America's symbol.

There is but one reasonable explanation for Obama's actions. He feels it is much more important to appease the extremists who have seized control of the Democratic Party than to express allegiance to his country. He would rather please anti-war activists who have spit on the flag and burned it, referred to our troops in Iraq as murderers, and who have denigrated our military in general by referring to one of its top commanders, General Petraeus, as a traitor, than to overtly and proudly display the world's number one symbol of freedom.

George Soros, Moveon.org, and Media Matters are very proud, I am sure.

Thus, here is yet one more example of the swiftness with which Democrats embrace symbolic, anti-American gestures. The Dems can't appear too patriotic lest they alienate their main donor base.

The actions of Barack Obama hearken back to another era in America, during and after the Viet Nam War when the Democratic Party increasingly came under the influence of anti-war activists. At the 1972, 1976, and 1980 Democratic National Conventions the American flag was basically nowhere to be seen.

In fact, one commentator commented that the Democrats had so alienated the American public by shunning the flag that in 1984 they basically wrapped themselves in the flag in a last-ditch effort to try to defeat Ronald Reagan.

Americans saw through the ruse and elected Ronald Reagan to a 2nd term in one of the biggest landslides in American history.

The Iraq War has once again pushed to Democrats to the far-Left, so far, in fact, that Americans are beginning to wake up. The Democratic controlled Congress certainly inspires no confidence among the public with its dismal and historic low public approval rating of 11%.

Perhaps Americans will connect the dots and see that the same disease that infests Congress also infests the Democratic Presidential candidates.

It is possible, of course, that Obama unconsciously recognizes that the positions he espouses are a desecration to the flag and the liberty it symbolizes. In that case, it is better to take the flag off in order to espouse anti-freedom than to wear it as a hypocrite.