“This February, Michelle Obama caused a spasm of faux outrage on the right when, in attempting to argue that her husband’s campaign had brought something new to a political climate that had been so ugly for so long, she said that for the first time in her adult life, she was proud of her country. Though she obviously meant her country’s politics and not her country per se, the reaction was predictable. One voice joining the chorus of condemnation was that of Cindy McCain, who made sure to say that she has always been proud of her country. … Now that the quadrennial exercise in skill, endurance, and jingoistic chest-thumping we call a presidential campaign has been interrupted by the Olympics, there is a lot of patriotic feeling around. … But does it really make us feel any different about America than we did two weeks ago?” (08/19/08)