Now behold the newest entry in our country's quadrennial Presidential Candidate Dirt Peddlers' Parade. It is the new AP news story published today on Yahoo under the headline "Obama may face grilling on patriotism." Well, as we like to say here in Kansas -- lions and tigers, oh me, oh my! Senator Obama (gasp) was once photographed not putting his hand over his heart while reciting the pledge of allegiance. And even worse (GASP) he does not wear a flag lapel pin!

Symbols are strange and wonderful things. On the strange side, symbols of love and light are easily co-opted to serve dark purposes. The swastika once was a symbol for Christ. When der Fuehrer decided to fashion himself as the new savior not only of Germany, but of all the world, he made the swastika his own personal trademark. Then the real coup de grace came when he made the symbols of his political party the nation's only acceptable symbols for Germany itself.

Right now, right under our eyes, right-wing Republicans are pretty much trying to equate the grand old flag with the Grand Old Party. They have all but made the US flag their official party emblem. That is disgusting and desperate on their part. Being the party that has run out of ideas, they are trying to cover up their lack of substance with lapel pins. But maybe more than anything else, that's laughable!

For some time now, we have been living in a topsy-turvy universe. It is a place where war heroes like John Kerry and John McCain are painted as either traitors or psychotics or both, and draft dodgers like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are painted as -- well -- war heroes. It is a place where politicians are considered staunch pro-lifers even though they like nothing better than the sight of dead men walking in the halls of state prisons and the red glare of rockets over the skies of oil-rich Middle Eastern countries. It is a place where somehow it is patriotic to fight progress and unpatriotic to pursue sound science. It is a place where such phenomena as hastening climate change and a ballooning national debt either don't exist or aren't nearly as big and bad as Al Gore and the Clintons say they are.

It is a place where the most patriotic thing you can do -- next to wearing the flag lapel pin, of course -- is to shop until you drop.