Andanh.com

Sen. Barack Obama has been wearing his American flag lapel pin again, most appropriately during his speech this week in Missouri on patriotism. His critics may call that a flip-flop. I call it a sign that he's learning.

As recently as the debate before the Pennsylvania primary, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee gave eloquent reasons why he didn't think a flag pin was as important as the patriotic beliefs he held in his heart. But flag pin lovers vote, too.

It's too bad that so many voters invest so much in symbols, but that's a reality of politics and human nature. Polls show a small but not insignificant slice of voters continue to question Obama's patriotism, especially in white, working-class areas.

Voters don't all have a lot of time or inclination to spend analyzing issues and biographies, no matter how much I, as a news media worker, wish they did. They are more likely to look for signs and symbols that indicate the candidate, if elected, will do the right thing once they're behind closed doors.

Sen. John McCain's heroic wartime biography gives the presumptive Republican nominee a big edge in patriotism points. Obama, the beneficiary of a rapid rise to prominence, also is burdened by it. A lot of people don't yet know who he is and what he believes. Worse, he has been dogged by Internet-fueled smears, including false rumors that he will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance, place his hand over his heart during the national anthem or wear an American-flag pin on his lapel.

Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, as retired Gen. Wesley Clark infamously said recently. But what men do under fire might tell us about the character we may discover in a president.

Clark's precise words, aimed at undermining John McCain's executive experience, were: "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." In fairness, Clark also praised McCain's heroism, saying that he honored his service as a prisoner of war and even that "he was a hero to me."

Predictably, Republicans were outraged and Democrats were outraged at the GOP's outrage. For his part, Barack Obama condemned the remarks and distanced himself from his surrogate general.

McCain made a few tepid remarks, but mostly let others put Clark in his place. And though McCain is clearly content to use the iconic image of his younger pilot self for campaign purposes, he also has shrugged off his heroism.

"It doesn't take a great deal of effort to get shot down," McCain himself is fond of saying.

Patriotism is love of country, and it's also love of community. When our community is in danger, we rally together to fight for it.

The Machinists union is sounding the warning -- an early call to gather and fight for the aircraft industry, which is in danger of joining so many other industries in leaving for cheaper labor.

Aircraft has long been the lifeblood of Wichita. Many people can find "Rosie the Riveter" in their family tree, because Wichita churned out bombers during World War II.

When you walk down an assembly line, you can find third- and fourth-generation employees whose grandparents worked in the factories. The institutional knowledge in our work force is invaluable to the industry. Because of that, the industry is very healthy and profitable, and Wichita companies are innovative and put out high-quality products customers want to buy. One would think they wouldn't tinker with that success.

Yet it seems that some corporate leaders, with their eye on the bottom line above all else, don't understand this. An alarming plan, titled "Project Pelican," recently was discovered, detailing a Hawker Beechcraft plan to open a full final aircraft assembly facility in Chihuahua, Mexico.

South Koreans of all stripes have filled the streets of Seoul the past several weeks to protest the resumption of American beef imports. The question in the minds of many people both in Seoul, where I live, and in my native United States is: Why?

In truth, most of us don't understand it, but there are forces at work that go to the very core of what makes the modern world turn -- free trade.

Free trade has yielded incredible benefits around the world. The growth of economies, the reduction of poverty and the spread of information everywhere are all hugely positive effects that speak to strengths of the American global order.

However, all is not well, and the lesson that Americans can learn from the recent protests is the importance of transparency in global trade.

There were many reasons why many people in South Korea, a wealthy but little understood nation, reacted with such hostility to the resumption of beef imports. Many of them boil down to paranoia and a sensationalist news media that decided to blow relatively minor concerns far out of proportion. (One scientist went on record saying that Koreans were more susceptible genetically to mad cow disease than other peoples.) However, many Koreans I spoke to cited legitimate concerns over the safety of U.S. meat processing.

It's getting harder and harder to remain deluded. Each day brings new facts to drag our heads out of the sand. Two weeks ago, the New York Times reported that four Western oil giants were on the verge of signing no-bid contracts that would return them to Iraq, the third-most bountiful petroleum playground on the planet. It was the kind of news that Big Oil lives for.

We also learned this week that a group of American advisers, led by a team from the State Department, played a key role in drawing up the contracts between the companies and the Iraqi government.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney, both former oil-company executives, have long tried to tell us this war was about terrorism, about weapons of mass destruction, about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people, about anything but oil.

Said Bush: "We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

He didn't wait. It didn't matter that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States. Or that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The troops were sent into battle in early 2003, and there is still, after more than five years and more than 4,000 American deaths, no end to the war in sight.