Word: pinning
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...Obama now wears a flag pin on his lapel. Every...
...Such was the false dichotomy that faced Barack Obama during his April 16 debate against Hillary Clinton, when Charlie Gibson asked Obama a voter question about why he did not wear a flag pin on his lapel. The previous October, an Iowa ABC reporter had asked him a similar question, to which Obama replied that he had worn one after 9/11, but soon noticed, "people wearing a lapel pin but not acting very patriotic." He went on to explain, "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead I'm going to try to tell the American...
...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...
...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...
...Then came 9/11. Taking a page from the Nixon Administration, George W. Bush and his aides all donned pins. So did many anchors on Fox News, though not Bill O'Reilly, who said at the time "I'm just a regular guy. Watch me and you'll know what I think without wearing a pin." ABC News, on the other hand, prohibited its on-air reporters from pinning on the red, white, and blue, citing a desire to maintain journalistic credibility...