Why Do White House Correspondents Hate America?

Photo from Newshounds.us, where you can also read a bit more about it.

Well, doesn't it just figure? The people who've been hounding Barack Obama for his patriotism are themselves unpatriotic by their definition. Interesting.

The patriotism issue, especially as it applies to ridiculous things like flag pins and whatnot actually highlight a disturbing trend in the state of our news media. Rev. Jeremiah Wright's prominence for weeks and weeks and weeks (and weeks) is another. It is the media's ability to take a frivolous or trivial issue, and magnify its importance beyond all scope and reason.

What's worse, these silly "issues" have a real tendency to be straight from the mouths of fierce, rabid partisans like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Then, after the "scandal" takes root, every discussion of the topic devolves into reporting on how the media is responding to the issue, how much play it's getting in the press. As Rachel Maddow noted on Race for the White House on MSNBC,

"I find it incredible that we're all sitting here going, 'Why won't the Jeremiah Wright controversy go away?' [snip] What else has to happen in the news to push Jeremiah Wright out of the headlines, before we do it for six straight headlines on every politics show in the country?"

And now that I have wandered away from my topic, here's an excerpt from AmericaBlog, about the non-issue of patriotism and the National Anthem.

[Excerpt]

Half the audience at White House Correspondents Association dinner didn't put hand on heart during National Anthem

You're not supposed to put your hand on your heart during the National Anthem, that's for the Pledge, but still, it's interesting that at the opening of last week's White House Correspondents Association dinner, a little birdie tells me that half the audience didn't put their hands on their hearts. . .

Read more at: AmericaBlog