McGovern in the Nation

George McGovern raises a familiar complaint on the left, in "Patriotism is Nonpartisan."

There is a notion abroad in American politics, carefully crafted by its proponents, that is both disturbing and false. It is especially disturbing to me personally because it is frequently associated with my campaign for the presidency in 1972. The notion is that my party, and especially its standard-bearer of '72, are not interested in the defense and security of America. . . .  Perhaps my views are outdated, but I have always assumed that every American cares about these values; consequently, they are not issues for partisan exploitation.

He rebutts this by hauling out all his war pictures.  Now I have never had reason to question McGovern's patriotism.  When he speaks of flying bombing missions I am impressed, and when he says he would have sacrificed his life for his country at any time, I'm prepared to believe him.  Nor do I believe for a moment that his opposition to the Vietnam War, or criticisms of Pentagon budgets discredit his patriotism. 

But McGovern doesn't seem to notice that his words are appearing in The Nation.  How many of the folks who run this journal are proud of their military service, or would gladly lay down their lives for their country?  Consider Katha Politt, writing shortly after 9/11:

My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I'm wrong--the flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no to terrorism. In a way we're both right: The Stars and Stripes is the only available symbol right now. In New York City, it decorates taxicabs driven by Indians and Pakistanis, the impromptu memorials of candles and flowers that have sprung up in front of every firehouse, the chi-chi art galleries and boutiques of SoHo. It has to bear a wide range of meanings, form simple, dignified sorrow to the violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry that has already resulted in murder, vandalism and arson around the country and harassment on New York City streets and campuses. It seems impossible to explain to a 13-year-old, for whom the war in Vietnam might as well be the War of Jenkins's Ear, the connection between waving the flag and bombing ordinary people half a world away back to the proverbial stone age. I tell her she can buy a flag with her own money and fly it out her bedroom window, because that's hers, but the living room is off-limits.   . . .

Bombing Afghanistan to "fight terrorism" is to punish not the Taliban but the victims of the Taliban, the people we should be supporting. At the same time, war would reinforce the worst elements in our own society--the flag-wavers and bigots and militarists. It's heartening that there have been peace vigils and rallies in many cities, and antiwar actions are planned in Washington, DC, for September 29-30, but look what even the threat of war has already done to Congress, where only a single representative, Barbara Lee, Democrat from California, voted against giving the President virtual carte blanche.

Someone who refuses to fly a flag thirty years after Vietnam, and who believes we cannot fight back against a nation that has launched an attack against us, well that's someone whose patriotism is hard to sort out.  These folk voted for McGovern.  The American people responded by flattening his presidential ambitions like a pancake.  I suspect both sides knew what they were doing.