Word: chesting
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...Patikul, on Jolo island, General Juancho Sabban, who heads the country's anti-terrorism task force, gives a guided tour of a former Abu Sayyaf base close to one of his forward operating bases. "See how difficult it is to see the bunkers," he says, striding nimbly through the chest-high grass that covers the hillside. Hidden in the grass are the 2-m-deep spider holes from which Abu Sayyaf guerrillas popped up to kill six of his men during a 2006 firefight...
...liberals have been arguing about these two strains for years, and that debate has become the pivot of our politics. Republicans have contended that they are the true legatees of the nation's heritage and attack Democrats for being ashamed of America. Democrats in turn depict Republicans as chest-thumping nationalists who prevent America from living up to its ideals. Both of these are caricatures...
...conservatives tend to see patriotism as an inheritance from a glorious past, liberals often see it as the promise of a future that redeems the past. Consider Obama's original answer about the flag pin: "I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said last fall. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism." Will make this country great? It wasn't great in the past? It's not great...
...defining Americanism too narrowly and backwardly, conservative patriotism risks becoming clubby. And by celebrating America too unabashedly--without sufficient regard for America's sins--it risks degenerating from patriotism into nationalism, a self-righteous, chest-thumping ideology that celebrates America at the expense of the rest of the world...
...Could these unforced errors outweigh Obama's rising polls, his bulging war chest or the field operation unfolding in places Republicans haven't had to defend in years? Probably not. But they are the sorts of mistakes you make when you think you can't make any. And in politics as elsewhere, that is often when the most costly decisions are made...