A while back Hillary Clinton co-sponsored a bill, the "Flag Protection Act of 2005", which declares its purpose is "to provide the maximum protection against the use of the flag of the United States to promote violence while respecting the liberties that it symbolizes." The bill is rather narrowly written: prohibiting (1) flag burning in order to incite violence, and (2) burning a flag owned by the US government, or another person, on federal land. I would think in either case, existing laws already penalizes the actions described, and so this bill is both meaningless and redundant. Of course Clinton knows all this; that she manages to put her name on such a bill, apparently without embarassment, is a sign of how the chronic practice of politics corrupts those ideals which had motivated the political action in the first place. Or perhaps it is a transparent (and transparently inept) act of political cynicism. Or perhaps it is both.

Obama, of course, got harangued by right-wingers when he stopped wearing a flag lapel pin. Characteristically, it was the youngest, least experienced candidate who, impoliticly, questions the need to wear a fig leaf when one is not in the nude. I suspect a younger Hillary Clinton would have done the same. I wonder how the 23 year old Hillary Rodham might have felt, had she known what will become of her.