Word: lapelled
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...been a lightning rod for controversy during the presidential campaign, but it is not a litmus test for patriotism. Francis Scott Key wrote of the Stars and Stripes waving "o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave," not o'er the Brooks Brothers lapel. Tracy Leverton, Vienna...
...Short of wearing a stars and stripes onesie, the flag lapel pin is the quickest sartorial method for a politician to telegraph his or her patriotism. The origin of the flag lapel pin is murky, though it is by necessity linked the history of the American flag as a commonly used symbol. According to Marc Leepson's Flag: An American Biography, the "near religious reverence many Americans have" for our national symbol dates only to the Civil War era (not back to the Revolutionary War, as many assume) . Prior to that, few private citizens possessed or flew their own flags...
...Since then, flag imagery has been intricately tied to moments of crisis or conflict. Over the past four decades, Kit Hinrichs, one of the nation's top graphic designers, has collected more than 5,000 pieces of stars and stripes-related memorabilia. He says the flag lapel pins in his collection don't really date back before mid-century. "I don't think it was a common thing for men and women to wear before the Second World War," he says. "I certainly have jewelry from before then with flags on it - cufflinks and stick pins and tuxedo buttons...
...during the culture wars of the late '60s and early '70s that the flag lapel pin truly took off and became the simultaneously uniting and divisive symbol that it is today. Republican candidates in the 1970 congressional race wore them as a symbol of patriotic solidarity against anti-Vietnam protesters like Abbie Hoffman - who donned a shirt made of the flag - or others who stitched the flag onto the seat of their pants. But it was Richard Nixon who brought the pin to national attention. According to Stephen E. Ambrose's biography Nixon, the President got the idea for sporting...
...befits a tradition that reached its height during the Nixon years, flag lapel pins have - fairly or not - become to many a shibboleth of America's War on Terror, and a symbol of the "either you're with us or against us" ethos that has often prevailed since September 11, 2001. And while the country hasn't yet reached anything close to a consensus on what a flag pin says about its wearer, Barack Obama seems to have discovered that symbols matter - even if one doesn't agree with the way they are used...