Obama in the most recent debate:
Obama was asked by a voter via video why he did not wear the American flag in his lapel.
“I have never said that I don’t wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us,” he said.
This whole issue is pretty stupid, but, for the record:
“You don’t have the American flag pin on. Is that a fashion statement?” the reporter asked, at the end of a brief interview with Obama on Wednesday. “Those have been on politicians since Sept. 12, 2001.”
The standard political reply to that question might well have been, “My patriotism speaks for itself.”
But Obama didn’t say that.
Instead the Illinois senator answered the question at length, explaining that he no longer wears such a pin, at least in part, because of the Iraq War.
“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.”
A manufactured issue? Yes, but Obama was the one who manufactured it.
(Via Hot Air.)
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