There is a difference between disagreeing about how to improve America and asserting that one side of the debate is pro-America and the other is anti-America, said The Los Angeles Times in an editorial yesterday. Excerpts:
As the presidential campaign wends through its final days, a disturbing, discordant note has entered the vernacular of the race. After months of a spirited but serious debate about the future of the country — about whether our common lot is best safeguarded and advanced by a thoughtful young senator from Illinois or a tough veteran from Arizona — we now are hearing one side question whether the other is genuinely American. Sarah Palin, in extolling the virtues of small towns, has mused about how they are “pro-America,” presumably as distinct from the anti-American parts of the nation. Even more baldly, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota told MSNBC that she was “very concerned” that Barack Obama “may have anti-American views.”
Setting aside the amusing spectacle of a member of Congress calling on the media to expose members of Congress (careful what you wish for, congresswoman), it is worth considering the implications of this alleged anti-Americanism. Honest people can and do favor John McCain’s tax policy or Obama’s approach to the economy; thoughtful women and men, Americans all, prefer Obama on the environment or McCain on Iraq.
Many Americans believe that Joe Biden is a windbag or that Palin is woefully unprepared for high office. Those are expressions of a healthy American disputatiousness.
The veer into who is pro- and who is anti-America, however, is another matter altogether. Does Obama’s passing friendship with William Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground, constitute an act of bad judgment? Perhaps. Is it evidence of anti-Americanism? That’s where a critique becomes a smear.
