The Villagers are all aflutter because the McCain campaign and its surrogates are are talking about stuff like "the pro-America" parts of the country, and "real" parts of the state.

But you know what? Some areas of this country are a lot more patriotic than others. In some parts of the country, its tough to find a flag displayed on the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. In other places, flag display on "patriotic" holidays is the norm -- the places where you didn't wait until 9-11 to wear a flag pin.

Paul Waldman at TAPPED:

Conservatives are huge fans of symbolic patriotism -- flag lapel pins, flags on cars, full-throated singing of "God Bless the U.S.A." (aka "Proud to Be an American"), and so on -- public displays, in which one demonstrates to other people that one loves America.

Progressives, on the other hand, tend to favor substantive patriotism, which involves doing things to make one's country better.

Let's make an analogy.

And here comes the big wienie:

*coined by skippy, the bush kangaroo.

Iraq: Failure Was Always The Only Option - that's the title of a series of posts I've been contemplating that would seek to make the liberal case, in all its diversity, differences and contradictions, about Iraq, and by extension, the "War on Terror," and the implications of 9/11.

Jane Smiley hasn't exactly beaten me to it, but she has another of her magnificent rants up at The Huffington Post that you must not miss.