Patriotism

21 August 2008 |permalink | email article

Playing off Mark Penn’s ad hominem game plan John McCain shamelessly continues to assail Barack Obama’s patriotism.

There is McCain’s own “country first” slogan, the unsubtle hint that Obama is not American enough and that, in his ambition to be president, he lacks the good judgment to be commander in chief.

No longer above the fray Obama has finally started firing back with a sustained and hard-hitting negative advertising campaign in states that will be crucial this fall.

In California and Florida in recent days Obama has criticized McCain for challenging his patriotism, for saying Iraqis would greet Americans as “liberators” in 2003, and as embracing a negative brand of politics in general.

But a new survey just released as both Democrats and Republicans prepare for their national conventions, finds that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with how national political leaders typically invoke patriotism and a call for a new vision that features more emphasis on the future and constructive change.

The poll was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and commissioned by the True Patriot Network.

It finds that McCain is now regarded as more patriotic. But when two excerpts of their comments are compared Obama wins by 52-41 percent.

** 76 percent of respondents believe that political leaders “invoke patriotism in a cheap and empty way.”

** The single most negative thing Americans feel about patriotism is that “politicians often exploit it to manipulate the public.”

Quotes of the Day

“He has the personality of a fighter pilot: when somebody stings you want to strike out.” Retired Gen. John H. Johns, a former friend and supporter.of McCain who turned against him over the Iraq war.

“McCain’s personal fortune traces back to organized crime in Arizona.” Jerome Corsi, who Swift-boated John Kerry as co-author of a book in 2004 and is trying to do the same to Obama in a new best seller, claiming in recent articles at worldnetdaily.com that the McCain campaign received “strong” financial support from a group tied Al Qaeda.”

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