Admire Obama for Not Wearing the Flag Pin

I don't have the consensus of my Mustard Street collaborators on this post, so I'm writing it in the first person.   They have, of course, agreed to my posting it as long as I'm speaking only for myself.

So, speaking for myself, it's not dwelling on the ephemeral to talk about Barack Obama's declining to wear an American flag lapel pin and I admire him for it.  When Obama explained it earlier in the campaign by saying that it trivializes genuine patriotism, he said something I've often thought myself when I see politicians wearing flag pins.  

How much easier for him just to wear the pin!   Who would it offend?   No one.   It's risk free.   Most people think it's just fine, and those who in their hearts spell "America" with a "k," for whom the flag (American, not Cuban) is a symbol of much of what they hate in the world, just dismiss it as a political "cost of doing business."

Instead, Obama rejects a cost-free piece of symbolism, even though doing so might cost him votes, something you will never see either of the Clintons do.

If Obama didn't take the flag seriously, he'd just pop on the lapel pin and forget about it.   That he doesn't shows a depth of character we see too rarely in the political world.