Do you know where your flag is? It's being waved in the House of Representatives in lieu of doing any work on, say, gas prices, stem cell research, global warming (fossil fuel emissions still voluntary). Health care reform? Why bother with a doctor when you can have Bill First diagnose your illness from the floor of the Senate.
Members so fearful of being called unpatriotic get closer and closer to passing the amendment to protect the flag from desecration. It takes guts to protect the constitution from being desecrated by a frivolous amendment.
It's not frivolous to worry about casting a vote against the amendment. Bush I and II used flag burning successfully against those two well-known squishy soft, pro-flag desecrating Massachusetts Democrats who both served in the military. It's the vote the right wing loves to force, knowing a member who votes against it will have to spend a lot of time and money pushing back against the inevitable ad which suggests a lack of patriotism. You can just hear Hillary Clinton to upstate New Yorkers: "I do TOO love my country."
No one could call the soldiers at Fort Bragg unpatriotic which allows them to behave appropriately. It's why they didn't do their "hooahs" when the president repeated things we all know to be untrue. Dragging up 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq is an insult to everyone's intelligence. Congress would have given the same speech 10 standing ovations. Not so the corporals in that gymnasium. They know the insurgency is alive and thriving. It's killing their buddies.
You can see why conservative might like a break from their regular red meat diet of railing against the morning after pill, gay marriage and lesbian puppets on public TV. But dredging up this old chestnut is shameful.
Even Newt Gingrich thinks the Republican majority has lost its way warning them that when "you're in the minority, you fight. When you're in the majority, you have to govern." If congress wants to celebrate the 4th with something patriotic, they should try doing their jobs.