Flag pins

Don't Pin Your Hopes on Them

By Rick Horowitz

Gas prices are soaring. The stock market is tanking. The housing crisis shows no signs of letting up. The evidence of global warming is everywhere. Our military is stretched to the breaking point by two mismanaged wars still dragging on after years and years. All the polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans feel we're off on the wrong track.

So let me turn to the question that's uppermost in your minds this July 4th weekend:

"Do you have a flag pin?"

I'm so glad you asked!

Of course I have a flag pin. In fact, I have two flag pins! I bought one of my flag pins at the gas station right across the street; they were up at the counter near the lighters and the lottery tickets. I think I got the other one as a party favor.

That makes two. How many flag pins do you have?

They're both waving-in-the-breeze flag pins, by the way. That's really the only way to go; those straight-as-a-stick flag pins always look so artificial. You really have to wonder why anybody would wear the phony-looking kind on his lapel when it's so easy to find the waving-in-the-breeze kind.

One of my flag pins has better colors than the other one -- it's just the way they were made, I guess. The red stripes are a little redder on that one, and the blue behind the stars is a much deeper blue. (I've got both of them sitting right here on my desk as I'm writing this, to make sure I get the details correct. Normally I keep them in my sock drawer, so they're always available.)

The one with the better colors is my favorite, of course. That's the one I wear whenever I have a choice -- it feels right. Sometimes I don't have a choice because I can't find that one; I might have left it stuck in a different lapel the last time I wore it. Then I wear the other one. It works pretty well, too.

"So you actually wear your flag pin?"

Of course I actually wear my flag pin! In fact, I wear it fairly often. I wear it whenever I pretend to be the president of the United States.

I'm on a weekly TV show here in Milwaukee -- maybe you know that already -- and I get to pretend to be all sorts of people. And whenever I pretend to be the president of the United States -- or at least this president of the United States -- my flag pin is the first thing I grab when I'm putting together my costume.

It doesn't matter if they've got me being George Bush in the Oval Office, or in the White House library, or just standing at some lectern somewhere: When you think of George Bush, you think of a flag pin. So that's how I play it.

Not that George Bush is the first president to wear a flag pin -- not at all. I still remember how Richard Nixon and his crew used to wear flag pins all the time. They wore them to show the country how patriotic they were, and how unpatriotic certain other people were.

Actually, they wore them to distract people, while they went about committing their particular crimes and poking their particular holes in the Constitution. And it even worked for a while; that's how powerful flag pins used to be.

Not anymore, though. People can see through that stuff -- they know it's only jewelry. They know that your lapel and your heart are two very different places.

But just in case? Go for waving-in-the-breeze.

Posted 7/2/08. Make a trip to "Rick's" your political fashion statement!

Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist, TV commentator, writing coach and public speaker.

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