Previously I criticized Matt for using props. Now, after the emailing I note, Obama's flag is bigger than Matt's. Obama uses a podium and teleprompters. Matt uses a Mount Rushmore replica.
Neither gains more respect or stature as being a greater patriot by wrapping up in the flag. In a big flag. (Not to mention the cloisonne flag lapel pins popular with W and crowd, likely made in China.) Too many politicians do the flag-wrap anyway, and to me it is a wholly unimpressive thing. By Obama. By any politician. It adds nothing but they all seem to like the idea.
Possibly some expect to project a subliminal suggestion of super-patriot grandeur.
______________UPDATE______________
In the earlier post I noted the concept that "liberty" and "opposition to government intrusion in private life" can mean different things to different people, and when the politicians resort to such terms, we may experience a buffet table effect.
It is time to admit to a personal buffet table attitude to Ron Paul. I like his beliefs on need to curb and audit the interlocked international banking system, starting with the Fed; and his beliefs about cost-benefit clarity concerning the so-called War on Drugs. Also, his opposition to the so-called Patriot Act is commendable. His belief that our military is too large and our foreign policy too meddlesome into the affairs and upon the soil of other nations also seems fine to me. His wanting to tout "liberty" but wanting to curb reproductive choice is contradictory and suggests a degree of insincerity or of inadequate analysis. Otherwise, Ron Paul is fine on separation of church and state. He shows no prejudice toward Muslims. No favoritism for fundamentalists of any stripe.
Ron Paul wanting to gut social spending, posing a threat to Medicare and Social Security and an impediment to ultimately having single payer is, to me, intolerable in that it opposes what perhaps is the most fundamental purpose of government (protecting the poor and powerless from the excesses of the wealthy and powerful). Ron Paul's dislike of regulation to me is also a problematic renunciation of another basic purpose of government (protecting the wealthy and powerful from excesses of each other).
So, a buffet table.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE_____________
The old warrior, with flag prop.
