Can You See?
Submitted By Todd on June 18th at 2:19pm
Remember when, during the campaign, Barack Obama refused to wear a flag pin - he said it trivialized the notion of patriotism?
While he relented on the flag pin, it's safe to assume that whatever the underlying premise was for his flag discomfort, it didn't go away when he started wearing flag pins. I think it's worth asking - have you ever seen a president make a speech or hold a press conference without a backdrop of American flags?
"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. "Instead," he said, "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."I was surprised to find that the answer is yes... while most of my youtube searches have found presidents standing in near or in front of flags, that's not always the case. But the blogosphere claims Obama's presser last month was the first to ever exclude the American flag, and it may be that there are flags nearby in shots of presidents without them.