Over on one of NRO’s other blogs, Mona Charen looks at a poll results showing that while 71 percent of Republicans “completely agree” with the statement “I am very patriotic,” only 48 percent of Democrats did. She concludes, “Democrats do tend to be less patriotic than Republicans. There, I’ve said it out loud.”

Is that a fair statement? Well, I know a slew of Democrats who will be furious over that statement. They’re representing their government overseas, working in the legislative process, working in low-pay, high-aggrivation fields like social work. I wouldn’t call any of those folks “unpatriotic” in a million years.

But I think it is fair to say that Republicans and Democrats — or at least conservatives and liberals - love America for completely different reasons. To quite a few conservatives, religious freedom and the fact that religious life thrives so easily and thoroughly in our nation is a big reason for their love of the USA. Quite a few liberals look at the same phenomenon and see impending theocracy; they see separation of church and state as a big reason to love America. To many liberals, Roe vs. Wade demonstrates that our system defends the right to privacy and “reproductive freedom”, even in the face of popular opinion and potential “tyranny of the masses.” To many conservatives, the judicial fiat of “Roe vs. Wade” is one of the most un-American moments in our history; they would contend that the enormous national grassroots effort to overturn that decision is a reason to be proud.

Here’s where a Kumbayah columnist would say, “Isn’t that what’s great about America? That we can all love our country for different reasons?”

I’m not a Kumbayah columnist, so I’ll say no. It should not be too much to ask from our body politic to agree on some first principles (though not specific policies).

Illustrative example: I was debating immigration with a left-of-center friend. I asked, “what is an American?” This person responded, “well, you come here…” and then had a tough time coming up with other criteria. (Ironically, yes, “here”, as in the location of the conversation, is Turkey.) It should not be too much to expect that left, right and center, an “American” is a citizen, who is either born here or a legal immigrant. We may not have the “blood and soil” identity of Europeans, but the mere fact that you have crossed over into American territory does not make you an American. It is unsurprising that the immigration debate is marked by such passion and vitriol if one side defines “American” as merely a matter of location.

So why would fewer Democrats agree with the statement “I am very patriotic”? Well, I’m reminded of an opinion by Al Franken, that conservatives love America the way a child loves a parent, while liberals love America the way a spouse loves a spouse. (Considering all the complaining he does about the country, one has to wonder what it’s like to be married to Al Franken.) I don’t quite agree with that assessment, but there may be something there. Conservatives - again, generally - look at America and see much of its achievements and beam with pride; liberals generally look at America and see its failures and shortcomings and lament how far we have to go to reach the ideal.

This brings me to Geraghty’s Ironclad Political Rule of the Term “Sheeple.” I recall angry conservatives throwing around the term “sheeple” while discussing President Clinton in the 1990s, as in, “The ignorant, fat, naive sheeple will just nod their heads at whatever Clinton and the biased media tell them.” Today the term is used almost exclusively by the left, contending that the “sheeple” are being lulled into fearful subservience by President Bush, terror alerts, Karl Rove’s Jedi Mind Tricks, Fox News, etc.

Geraghty’s Ironclad Political Rule of the Term “Sheeple”: The political side that is using that term is losing and will continue to lose. The moment you start looking down on voters and losing faith in the (generally) good judgment of voters, you separate yourself as an elitist, and it will show.

So perhaps it’s harder to be patriotic when you’ve lost faith in the judgment of the nation’s voters.

Of course, one of my favorite observations from Cam was, “You know, I always hear liberals complaining that we’re attacking their patriotism. But if they love this country so much, why are they always bitching about it?”

So - a couple days ago, I asked, “is the core principle of the right half of the blogosphere anti-Moonbattery? Is that enough?”

The question stems from a nagging worry that conservatism, from the pajama-clad bloggers to lawmakers to the thinkers and writers, is sliding into the lazy habit of spending much of our energy beating up the foolishness of the Kossacks, Deaniacs, and Moonbats. Yes, it’s fun, but it’s the mental equivalent of junk food. We know what we’re against; we’re having tougher internal debates about what we’re for.

I read Richard Brookheiser’s “What Would the Founders Do” last weekend. It’s a quick read, a fun look at history (including a list of the blogs the Founding Fathers would write if they were alive today!) and thought-provoking ideas.

But I wonder if you could really persuade a majority of voters to support a particular political agenda by citing that it is in line with the ideas of the Founding Fathers. I suspect there’s been enough historical revisionism and intellectual rot within the body politic to persuade too many voters that Thomas Jefferson’s signature accomplishment is sleeping with Sally Hemmings. I wish the argument that “This is what George Washington and Ben Franklin would support” were compelling to all, but it isn’t.

So I’m wondering whether you can base your political worldview on something more recent, and more intensely, emotionally compelling than the words of great men 200+ years ago. I’m thinking of Bill Whittle’s brilliant recent essay, “Rafts“:

People of good will on both sides value peace and freedom, yet we have diverging choices to make, and we have to make them now. We have to chart our course, a course for our country, and ultimately, a course for the entire world.

We need a map. Several are for sale. How do we choose?

Actually, it’s not so difficult. We can choose the map that best conforms to the coastline we see unveiling before us. We choose the map that best matches reality – the objective, external, indisputable reality of bays and promontories, capes and gulfs and rivers and shoals.

We can, indeed, lay out competing philosophies on the table, and see where each conforms to reality and where it does not. No maps are without distortions; none of these are likely to be, either. And one map may conform perfectly to the coastline in one area, and be dreadfully amiss in another. We can cut and paste them as we wish. This is too important for us to be arguing about who is right – all our energies must go to getting it right.

And before we start, we must agree to one thing: we will never be so full of arrogance and blinded by pride that we dare confront a place where our map does not match the coastline, and proclaim that the coastline must be wrong.

I have a mental map of the world. So do you. So did Lenin, and al-Zarqawi, and Winston Churchill, and Attila, and Ronald Reagan. Everyone has an internal map of how the world works.

Specifically, I’m wondering if you could shape a “map” - a coherent political platform and worldview entirely out of the painful lessons of 9/11. For example, what would happen if conservatives on Capitol Hill justified their arguments for a smaller government not by citing abstract principles or an intellectual ideal, but by contending that large, bloated, unfocused government will get us killed because it doesn’t focus on the most important issues?

I’m thinking of a few recent arguments, including Mark Steyn’s observation back on 11/19/01:

The bigger you make the government, the more you entrust to it, the more powers you give it to nose around in the citizenry’s bank accounts and phone calls and e-mails and favorite Internet porn sites, the more you’ll enfeeble it with the siren song of the soft target. The Mounties will no longer get their man, they’ll get you instead. Frankly, it’s a lot easier. And so the INS failed to get Mohammed Atta, but they did get [British citizen and 9/11 widow] Deena Gilbey. Congratulations, guys… We don’t need big government, we need lean government – government that’s stripped of its distractions and forced to concentrate on the essentials.

How many more voters will listen to you if you make the case based on the most important issue to them: Keeping them and their families safe?

Finally saw the 24 season finale.

It sucked.

I judge this an uneven season. Started off with some of the biggest shocks in series television — they killed my second favorite character! They killed my third favorite character! They maimed my fifth- oh, wait, no, they killed him too!

There was a lull after the first four episodes, then it picked up again with the attack on CTU. Those episodes were some of the classic, “Oh my God, I can’t believe that happened!” moments that separate “24″ from most other action shows on TV. On other shows, the good guys find the bomb in time and defuse it; on this show, the bomb goes off and we watch dozens of CTU employees including Edgar die horrific deaths. (There goes my sixth favorite character! Look out, Mike Novick!)

But honestly, the show lost momentum after the clash at the natural gas plant; the revelation about President Logan felt a little tacked-on (he was more interesting as a simply incompetent, in-over-his-head president instead of a sort of split-personality, bumbling-in-public, ruthless-in-private ubervillian). And the “shock” ending of Jack being kidnapped wasn’t all that shocking. The moment Jack was informed that Kim was on the phone, the whole situation screamed “TRAP!”

Time for a nutty theory about 24: If the show were created anew today, the producers would drop the “real time” format as it gets ignored more and more every season (never mind Jack not complaining about being awake for 24 hours; no character complained or even noticed this year that they had been dealing with terrorist crises for 24 straight hours). It would make more sense to have four six-hour arcs, with each one picking up a few days later — clues from one attack lead to a raid on another terror cell, which prompts the mastermind to launch another attack as a diversion, etc.

Another observation: The promos for next year’s shows, including “Standoff” and “Disappeared” suggest that Fox wants to duplicate the success of “24.” I had a great idea (to me), too bad no one asked. Use some of your supporting characters (Tony and Michelle would have been a great pair) and create “CTU: New York” or “CTU: Washington” or Chicago, showing us the adventures of another branch of CTU elsewhere in the country. (The lesson of 24 is that all terrorist attacks occur somewhere in Los Angeles, and the President spends most of his time there, as well.) On the CTU spinoff, drop the “real time” format (while keeping the clock motif and reminding viewers of the time) . Of course, the President, Chief of Staff, etc. would be the same, so those actors would have to do double duty, the way Fred Thompson periodically shows up on various “Law and Order” spinoffs.

Anyway - here’s hoping that Season Six is more consistent. And that CTU gets rid of its Affirmative Action Program for Terrorist Moles. (”In order to promote a diverse workforce, we at CTU are committed to hiring and promoting employees who are on the payroll of terrorist groups, and/or evil conspiracies.”)

More later.

Cam: Hate is probably too strong a word, especially when I’m hoping to use your Nats tickets on Friday. Let me just say I’m incredibly envious of you right now. It’s been raining almost non-stop since you left. We had mudslides (!) on the Beltway this morning.

Clearly the message is Marshall leaves D.C. and things go to hell. We need you back here, buddy!

Marshall: Report from today (current location: Denver) — 75 degrees, sunny. Light wind out of the south. Enjoy the flooding.

I’m here at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington for a panel discussion on ”24” and the War on Terror. Rush Limbaugh moderating, Tony Almeda and Chloe O’Brien on the panel (as well as President Logan). Oh yeah, some guy named Michael Chertoff’s here too. :p

No sign of Jack Bauer. He probably doesn’t have time for things like this.

It’s just about to get started, so I’ll post impressions later today.

***Update***

It’s a who’s who of attendees. Clarence Thomas is down front, Maureen Dowd is floating around, and Laura Ingraham is here as well.

***Update***

This was a much more interesting discussion than what I’d anticipated.

To start, Michael Chertoff made a pretty astute observation: that Jack Bauer often has to make “the best choice from a series of bad options”. It’s a simple statement, but it applies in real life. All too often the Kos’s and Atrios’s of the world demand that we do things their way, not understanding that their way is either unrealistic or impossible given the options our enemy present to us.

Joel Surnow, the creator of “24″, brought down the house when he said that the show is a form of “wish fulfillment.” He went on to say it’s pretty clear on the show that “terrorists are the bad guys and we’re the good guys.” Yes, we hear that sentiment so infrequently from Hollywood that the audience cheered.

Also, interestingly enough, Surnow said the idea of a “real time” show came about before the idea of CTU. The original “real time” concept was going to be a wedding day, and it was going to be a romantic comedy.

Limbaugh was great and really had a fun time with the cast and crew of the show. He and Carlos Bernard (who played Tony Almeda) had some great moments of bantering back and forth.

Surnow was predictably close-lipped about what’s in store for Season 6, but he did offer a few clues. If you don’t want to read the spoilers, stop reading now.

The show will do stuff in D.C. next year. The president will be based in D.C., but most of the show will continue to be shot in Los Angeles.

Aaron Pierce will be back next year. Interestingly, Surnow said he was originally going to be killed off in Season 5, but the actor convinced the producers there had been too many main characters die.

President Logan will be back next year as well, or at least that was strongly suggested by Surnow.

And one spoiler for the “24″ movie, which is currently being written. It was described by Surnow as a big action flick that will not be tied to real time (but will take place over 24 hours). It will also be shot on location, and Surnow mentioned it would have a lot of overseas filming.

Jim: Wow! I shudder with envy. Envyenvyenvyenvyenvy!

The American Scene is one of those blogs I find myself checking more and more often. About one out of every three posts is supremely thought-provoking, one is pretty good, and one leaves my head spinning. Anyway, a comment from an unnamed friend of the bloggers in this post got me to thinking:

And there is the phenomenon of people who are basically cosmopolitan in their cultural provenance turning themselves into cultural conservatives after they become political conservatives, which seems kind of backwards. (I totally understand this impulse, too. My conversion experience to conservatism provoked a serious re-thinking of my theological commitments (which didn’t take, finally).) I’m thinking of middle-age converts to Catholicism and orthodox Judaism, and of Eastern intellectuals who now rhapsodize about Toby Keith, New Yorkers who feel an urgent need to get right with Alabama, both the state and the band. These things suggest that the real ground for American conservatism in the main, the real fundamental fact, is not the set of deep conservative principles that intellectuals hew to and operators cynically deviate from, but this “ground” of battle understandable more in a structural-existential sense, the us-them dynamic, which has a real pull, evidently. 

Two points here. One is that there’s an argument to be made that modern conservatism is being defined by a set of cultural indicators — NASCAR, country music, cowboy boots (think of George Allen’s emphasis on wearing those boots, and the perception that his choice of footwear stands for something), gun ownership, knowledge of a peer in the military, maybe Fox News watching, putting out the flag on holidays and not using air quotes when you say Jesus.

Sure, each of those can be an indicator of a person’s conservative views, yet this is a bit of Rod Dreher-style Crunchy Conservatism, finding a political or cultural signficance to your choices in footwear, food, etc.

There are a slew of ways that the bunch of us wouldn’t fit these conservative criteria. (Looking down the checklist - I grew up in New Jersey, moved to Washington D.C., two of the bluest of places. Don’t own a gun (as a DC resident, wasn’t allowed to). Now living overseas. Works in the media profession, and wrote for the Boston Globe for several years. A church attendance record that is… spotty at best. Doesn’t follow NASCAR, owns maybe one country music CD, enjoys Hollywood products if the liberal preaching can be kept below a dull roar, uses Starbucks as an office, etc. In short, I’m a city slicker by any standard and a media elite by quite a few.)

Now, identifying conservatism (and Republicanism) with these traits — church attendance, gun ownership, country music, NASCAR, etc. – has been electorally wise for the GOP. But one has to wonder if this is a convenient shorthand instead of standing for… well, policies. Iraq, spending, entitlements, balancing the economy and environment, instilling children with the right values… these are tough issues to solve, and tougher still to come up with proposals that won’t alienate some portion of a governing coalition of 51 percent. Easier to say “I stand for your values” and wear cowboy boots, isn’t it?

Second thought - so the story with Kos has been enjoyed with relish around the right half of the blogosphere. We on the right do a pretty good job of reporting, following, analyzing, and dissecting the news, but when a story has a Moonbat for us to hate - Dan Rather, Kos, Michael Moore, Murtha, Cindy Sheehan — the righty blogosphere seems to bring out its A-game; posts multiply, and they are sharper, tougher, funnier. The passion comes out.

Why do our foes bring out the “best” in us? And is the core principle of the right half of the blogosphere anti-Moonbattery?

Is that enough?

I don’t have the time or energy to write another post tonight.

So… go, read and ponder our friend Mary Katharine Ham’s brilliant Townhall column.

It’s worth every second. I’ll try to add some comments in the morning. And perhaps Cam and Jim will chime in. I really think MKH is on to something important here.

Jim: Bravo, MKH.

She mentions how the shameless behavior of Jayson Blair and Jessica Cutler only helped their careers. I thought it was a terrible sign that immediately after he was fired for making stuff up, he signed a book deal in “the mid-six-figures.” (His book sold about 4,000 copies, and his publisher went out of business shortly afterwards, although Blair’s book wasn’t the only reason.) Ditto for Washingtonienne, which we discussed here. How many honest reporters asked, “Hey, I never made stuff up in my stories. Where’s my $500,000 book deal?” How many folks have said, “Hey, I slept around on Capitol Hill and I’m easy! How come my promiscuousness didn’t yield book deals and movie rights?”

I can say that Person X has behaved shamefully, and boycott them. But that doesn’t seem to have much of an impact. For some reason, the elites of our media and publishing world always seem to rush in to save these individuals from the consequences of their actions. For some reason, the media feels they deserve the spotlight (like the Washington Post magazine’s profile of Cutler, her columnist gig for some DC mag) and continued attention, which borders on approval.

We don’t have equal say in the shaping of our society’s values; there’s no point in pretending three guys at a bar and/or MKH can change the direction of the tides. The heads of publishing houses, editors of magazines and newspapers, television show bookers, celebrities - they all have much vaster power in shaping our culture and what it defines as good and important.

Probably the best example I can think of this infuriating phenomenon is Madonna’s recent lament, in song and interview, that America is too materialistic. Gee, I wonder how it got that way…. “Material Girl”! I wonder if there was any image-obsessed pop star who milked her fame for ultra-expensive concert tickets, a concert film, a nudie book, and a slew of ultra-crappy movies who could have had any role in shaping those values. Like the old anti-drug commercial said, “[We] learned it from watching you!”

Cam: We love scandal in this country. Fame is good, but infamy is better.

The problem is, I do have a sense of shame. Sure, I could say and do wildly inappropriate things that would probably gain me more notoriaty, but what would I tell my kids? It’s not worth it. I will continue to naively believe that one day the pendelum will swing back in the other direction and we’ll stop creating folk heroes out of the dregs of society.

Yesterday, the Center for Science in the Public Interest announced that it was planning to sue Starbucks because the coffee chain’s drinks are fattening. This comes only days after CSPI sued KFC in Washington, DC because the company’s friend chicken is too fattening.

I’ve been railing against the lunatics from CSPI since my days fighting the food police at CFIF. CSPI has a long record of pushing a radical agenda that would deprive folks like you and me of our freedom to choose what we eat and drink.

But lately, CSPI’s antics seem to have risen to a new level. More and more, they’re turning away from their old tactics of persuing their agenda in Congress or through the regulatory process and instead climbing into bed with the trial lawyers and persuing their agenda in the courts. This isn’t terribly surprising, but the courts’ reaction will help determine just how free we’re going to remain in the coming years.

Make no mistake, CSPI is one of those few genuinely dangerous Washington interest groups. They have learned how to present their whacked out ideas with just enough scientific backup (however slanted) to cover up the stench. And they truly won’t rest until we’re all eating a government mandated diet of sprouts and tofu.

We can only hope that CSPI’s attack on Starbucks wakes a few people up to the true whackiness of their agenda.

And speaking of tofu, I just have to point out this column by CEI’s Greg Conko proposing a new label for the anti-food zannies. He’s dubbed them Big Tofu. Priceless. And perfect. Give the piece a read. You’ll love it.

And since I pointed that out, I need to also say that I have a client interest in the Uniformity Bill that Greg mentions.

Jim: CSPI, you will get my cup of Starbucks when you pry it from my shaky, overcaffinated dead hand!

Cam: Radley Balko has the best comment on this that I’ve seen.

I myself am getting sick and tired of people assuming that I need to be taken care of. I’m a grown man, not a child. I don’t need CSPI (or a judge) to tell me that I can’t drink a Venti Mocha Frappuchino once every four months.

Marshall’s beagle, Cody — just in case you didn’t know what one looks like.

Not only are beagles darn cute, make great cartoon characters, and prevent nasty diseases from ruining our farms and killing our livestock, they can also save your life.

Her owner, Kevin Weaver, 34, was in the throes of a diabetic seizure, lying unconscious on his kitchen floor in Ocoee, Fla., when Belle located his phone and chomped down on the keypad, triggering a call.

The only thing emergency dispatchers heard was barking, but it was enough cause to send help, they reasoned. Weaver, a former flight attendant, woke up hours later in the hospital, weak and disoriented. Belle was there by his side, having finagled a ride in the ambulance.

Read the whole thing. It’s a great story. And then go scratch your dog behind the ears.

Jim: Fine, fine, Marshall, you’ve made your point. I hearby declare that all puppie-slaughtering policies have been suspended. For now.

John Patterson looked like cat butt in his start for Potomac tonight.

5 and a third inning, 4 runs, 7 hits. He also gave up a homerun.

Yes I’m blogging this from the game. I’m a geek.

Marshall: Wonderful. Just when the Nats need Patterson most. In yesterday’s game against the Yankees, the Nats bullpen looked they all should have been pitching for single-A Potomac. It’s going to be a long summer.

I can’t wait for the sale to be finalized so that Stan Kasten can fire, well, everyone. Start with Frank Robinson — the worst manager in major league baseball and work down from there. Ugh.

Marshall updating: Commenter Todd suggests that I should give the Nats their due for their two comeback wins over the weekend against the Yankees. He’s right. The comebacks were astonishing and speak the resiliancy and raw talent of the team. But let’s keep in mind that Nats pitching gave up a significant number of runs in both of those games and that they’re getting shelled tonight in Boston for the second night in a row.

Listen. I love this team. I love the players (though I wish they’d kept old school winners Jamey Carroll and Brad Wilkerson.) And I’m so glad to have a team at all that I dance a jig every time I get to the ballpark. But it’s time for some adult supervision for the front office and the field staff — folks who actually know how to run a big league franchise, as opposed to a GM who only knows how to stock every organization with ex-Reds. For heaven’s sake — it’s like watching Spurrier and his Gators experiment all over again.