To whom does the flag belong?
Howard Dean’s been making a habit lately out of either outright questioning patriotism, or saying that the flag “doesn’t belong to” various right wing public figures. Let’s recap some headlines from the last few months:
Arrests in Iraq fuel renewed attacks on Bush “John Ashcroft is not a patriot,” he [Dean] said. “John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy.”descendant of Joseph McCarthy? Those are strong words. Let not a Republican say them. He’s also tried to paint himself as a Boston Tea Party revolutionary war type with W playing the “monarch” role:
Dean Invokes Boston Tea Party, Rips ‘King’ George Dean drew parallels between his own grass-roots campaign for the White House and the Boston Tea Party, a protest against British tax policies 230 years ago that sowed the seeds of the American Revolutionary war. He said that like King George III, the British monarch against whom American colonists rebelled, Bush had “forgotten his own people” and was listening only to special interests.
And from that same link, we learn to whom the flag REALLY belongs: “This democracy and the flag of the United States do not belong to Rush Limbaugh, and Jerry Falwell, and Tom DeLay, and John Ashcroft, and Dick Cheney,” Dean said as he listed prominent conservatives. “This flag and this country belong to us and we want our country back.”
Well, he’s at it again. Trying to tell us to whom the flag DOESN’T and DOES belong. Here’s the latest:
Dean Gets Standing Ovation from Arab-Americans “It [the flag] does not belong to General Boykin, or John Ashcroft, or Rush Limbaugh or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson,” the former Vermont governor said to cheers in the packed hotel conference room in the Detroit suburb which is home to one of the highest concentrations of Muslims and Arabs outside the Middle East. “This flag belongs to every single American, including every single American in this room, and is the hope and aspiration for many other folks who are not yet citizens,” he said.
I see General Boykin has been added to the list. Lucky him! I wonder if Dean would add me, and other right wingers who support the Bush administration, to his list of people to whom the flag doesn’t belong. Apparently, to Howard Dean and some other Democrats, the questioning of one’s patriotism, wrapping oneself in the flag, and painting oneself as a revolutionary is ok to do – as long as it’s a Democrat doing it. This man is one of the most divisive legitimate presidential candidates I can recall in recent history. I find it reprehensible that he paints himself as the true patriot, a revolutionary, wraps himself in the flag, and tells Americans just who can claim the American flag as their own – but others who invoke images of the flag (Republicans) are criticized for it. Who the hell is he to decide who possesses the flag? THAT FLAG BELONGS TO ALL OF US! What I find more shocking is the lack of condemnation from the DC Democrats of whom we’d normally hear the howls of outrage had these comments come from a Republican.