I just happened to be in Orlando at my sister's house this morning, just in time to spend Sunday morning with this masterpiece by Scott Maxwell in the Orlando Sentinel:
John McCain obviously doesn't love Jesus enough.
You can tell just by looking at his lapel -- where there's no miniature replica of our Lord and Savior.
Lapels, after all, are where good Americans display things they truly care about.
That's the message being drilled home by attack dogs in the political arena with the help of the lap dogs in the media.
Only it's not McCain they're attacking. It's Barack Obama -- and the American-flag pin that's sometimes missing from his lapel.
Welcome to Democracy in America, where you might not wear your heart on your sleeve, but you'd darn sure better wear a tiny metallic flag on your sport coat.
Our country is at war. The economy's a mess.
And we're a nation consumed with fashion accessories.
Our country is lost in the Valley of the Dolls, lulled into a collective stupor by the traditional media. Are we ready to wake up? I hope so.
The huge rally in Oregon, the unbelievable result in Indiana, the positive national polls, the groundswell of support from younger voters, and the record breaking participation in the primaries say Yes We Are.
But the pushers are still pushing. Is the flag pin their gateway drug for this cycle?
At first, the whole thing was laughable -- the kind of farcical story one might expect to see on The Colbert Report.
But then, in a country with a short attention span and a lazy press corps, this nonstory caught fire. Even more so when Obama was spotted wearing the flag pin again.
The Associated Press quickly spread the news worldwide: "Obama sports flag pin again after long absence."
Time's headline asked last week: "Obama's Flag Pin Flip-Flop?"
Said the Los Angeles Times on its Web site: "Breaking News: Obama caves! Flag pin returns to his coat lapel."
The Wall Street Journal had actually carried an op-ed from a Democratic strategist that implored Obama to wear the pin immediately, saying: "He simply cannot afford to raise doubts about his patriotism."
I think normal people know that pins don't prove you're a patriot.
Normal people? I wonder. Was it the normal people who gave George W. Bush a second term? Was it the normal people who sat back and watched "Shock and Awe" as if it was a hit television show?
More importantly, are the normal people now losing their life savings and their homes as their American dream goes up in smoke? Will they wake up in time to make the right choice, or will they get hooked on flag pin distractions again?
I mean, how patriotic did Larry Craig look when he was wearing one in his mug shot?
Heck, half of these things are made in China.
I don't know if that matters anymore, since the traditional media never seems to show both sides. Which is what made this article so shocking to me. It was in the Orlando Sentinel, and Central Florida is the land of Mickey Mouse and deep Repugnance. Yet here was a welcome dose of reality.
We used to be pretty good at giving you the news you need. But, in recent years, as we tried to battle newer media for your attention, we decided to pander.
Why give you detailed differences between Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's health-care plans when we can let you know about Lindsay Lohan's latest relapse?
Why offer pictorials about neglected communities when it turns out we have a bunch of naked pictures of Eliot Spitzer's hooker?
Oh, it's not completely our fault. I've seen what happens when our online site gives you a choice between reading about school reform and viewing grainy video of high-school girls beating the snot out of one another.
We end up with a nation talking about the fluffy, the hyperbolic and the divisive.
As a nation, we absolutely MUST break our addiction to shallow political campaigns based on prejudice and fear. Since we are actually seeing real analysis on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel on Sunday morning, we might just have a chance.